


see that my grave is kept clean

by vtforpedro



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Angst and Tragedy, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Criminal Credence Barebone, Falling In Love, Gellert Grindelwald Being an Asshole, I repeat, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Not A Fix-It, Not A Happy Ending, Not Canon Compliant, Not Happy, Smut, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, i repeat!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:14:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 32,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26504974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtforpedro/pseuds/vtforpedro
Summary: In which Percival Graves and Credence Barebone cross boundaries to experience love and learn the price they must pay for it.
Relationships: Credence Barebone/Gellert Grindelwald, Credence Barebone/Original Percival Graves
Comments: 12
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **IMPORTANT**
> 
> Just in case anyone might not have read the tags in full, this is NOT a happy ending. This is Major Character Death and Life is Cruel for No Reason. Please heed the warnings and turn back now if it isn't your cup of tea. Ye be warned!

Graves leads a raid in mid-January. It’s bitter and cold, snow piled up over the property of a large manor. It looks abandoned but they’ve known for some time that it isn’t.  
  
It took time to plan the raid because these are followers of Gellert Grindelwald and not everyday Dark Arts practitioners who are frightened of Aurors. These people are singularly focused on the message Grindelwald is trying to push on the wizarding world and he’s given them orders to kill anyone who gets in the way of that message.   
  
There’s immense danger here but they’ve planned thoroughly for it and they don’t expect to get hit. _They_ don’t expect Aurors to have any idea where they are, what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, but after months of work, months of figuring out who and where, they come down on them hard.   
  
A battle is short-lived as Graves has brought in more than New York’s Auror department and after a short but intense fight, none of them lie dead. Some of the other side does, but that’s alright. They’ve pursued others off property but Graves expects them to be incapcitated or killed and to not lose any Aurors out there either.   
  
Once they’ve cleared the manor, they gather Grindelwald’s followers in the sprawling foyer of the home, bound with magic that prevents them from performing any themselves, their wands confiscated, Graves walks by each one and mentally checks off the list in his head of who they knew to be here.   
  
Some are missing, not here tonight or being pursued elsewhere, but one takes him by mild surprise.   
  
Graves stops in front of him, on his knees, his head hanging as Jauncey stands behind him, wand at the ready. Graves pushes the tip of his wand against his forehead until he lifts his head and looks up. He brushes aside long, wavy dark hair from the man’s face with his wand and smirks.   
  
“Ah,” he says. “I thought that might be you, Mister Barebone. You’ve been a hard man to find.”   
  
“Slippery as they come,” Jauncey says dryly.   
  
“That he is,” Graves says and smiles when Barebone narrows his eyes. His mouth is bound too, probably because he was giving Jauncey lip, and Graves nods at her. “Get him into a cell. When I get to MACUSA, bring him into a room.”   
  
“Yes, sir,” Jauncey says. She puts her hand on Barebone’s shoulder and with a _crack_ they’re gone.   
  
Graves gives orders to take the rest into MACUSA and tells Fontaine to send Curse Breakers down. He tells Barrows to make contact outside with who they’re missing and once they’re both gone, Graves waits for the Curse Breakers to get there.   
  
He gives them various orders about the home and the cluttered basement below, which they didn’t enter beyond merely making sure no one was in it. There will be secret tunnels leading out of it and he tells them to take Jauncey’s team once they’ve cleared the basement to be sure they’re protected while they do their work.   
  
Graves ensures that half of Barrows' team are at their posts, agreed upon well before tonight, and Disapparates back to Manhattan.   
  
MACUSA is quiet this time of night, nearly two in the morning, and Graves takes the lift down to the holding cells and interrogation rooms under the courtroom floor. He strides down the busy hallways and gets updates from some of his Aurors as he does. They hand him a notepad found at the manor and he glances through it, raising an eyebrow.   
  
“Huh,” he says and smirks at Abagnale. “How interesting.”   
  
Abagnale shakes his head. “They do make it that,” he sighs and jerks his thumb down another hallway. “He’s in _C.”_   
  
“Thank you,” Graves says and tucks the notepad in the pocket of his coat. He walks down the hall, the doors here solid and thick. He pushes the door to _C_ open and looks at Jauncey sitting in a chair and Barebone sitting in one across from her, a table between them. “Get to work on Hokes. I’ve got him.”   
  
Jauncey nods. “He’s in a fantastic mood, Percy,” she says with a grin as she stands. “You’re going to enjoy talking with this one.”   
  
“I imagine I will,” Graves says and winks at Barebone when he lifts his head to narrow his eyes at Graves. He waits until Jauncey has left before taking the chair she had been in and folds his hands together over the table. “Mister Credence Barebone. I have been very interested in meeting you for the past year.”   
  
“Mister Graves,” Credence says, his voice quiet and soft, the opposite of what he’s rumored to be. “Or should I call you Percy?”   
  
“That’d make us friends, Credence,” Graves says. “Do you want to be my friend?”   
  
Credence glares.   
  
Graves chuckles and reaches into his pocket, pulling out the notepad. He opens it and pushes it closer to Credence. “This looks an awful lot like your handwriting,” he says and smiles when Credence’s eyes flit between the notepad and Graves. “Decoy letters you sent and expected to be intercepted. You didn’t expect us to find this though.”   
  
He taps the notepad.   
  
Credence shakes his head a little to get some of that hair out his eyes, unable to do so with the hands that are tied behind his back. He does look remarkably different from the pictures they have of him and Graves will have someone give him a cut soon.   
  
“What about it?” Credence finally asks.   
  
“It’s a bold plan, don’t you think?” Graves asks. “Maybe too bold? Interesting nevertheless that someone got the idea that they were going to walk into MACUSA wearing my face and do… what? Steal all of its secrets?”   
  
Credence shrugs and looks down at the table. “I’m sure there are plenty of secrets in here to steal.”   
  
“If you know where to look,” Graves says. “Were you going to be the one, Credence?” he asks with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “Corner me in an alley, steal my memories and murder me? Walk into MACUSA and be me?”   
  
It makes Credence angry, Graves can see, his nose twitching briefly. He shifts in the chair and says nothing and doesn’t look at Graves. Doesn’t want to hold eye contact because he knows Graves can do wonders with eye contact.   
  
“I’m surprised to find you in New York,” Graves says. “I’ve heard you’re his boy.”   
  
Credence does look at him then and he’s even more angry. “I’m not anyone’s _boy,”_ he says roughly.   
  
“But you’re close.”   
  
“You think anyone is close to him?”   
  
“Do I think Grindelwald has true friends? People he confides in? People he cares about? No,” Graves says. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not close to him in other ways.”   
  
“What are you implying, Mister Graves?”   
  
“Nothing. I’d like for you to tell me what being his boy means.”   
  
Credence grits his teeth and looks up at the ceiling for a while. When he looks at Graves, there’s something in his eyes. Something a bit like fear and it’s not put-on.   
  
“I’m not nearly as close to him as you think I am,” Credence says. “Just because—”   
  
“Credence,” Graves interrupts with a smile. “We can do this one of three ways. One. You tell me the truth, all of it, willingly and for the sake of your life. Two. You take a potion and give me the truth unwillingly. Three. The potion doesn’t work because Grindelwald has taught you to fight its effects and I break into your mind and take what I want. I have been doing this far longer than you have, so cut the bullshit, and tell me which option you like the best.”   
  
Credence looks down at the table, his hair falling over his face again.   
  
He’s twenty-seven years old as of this past November, Graves knows, a mere nine years younger than Graves himself, but right now he looks like a lost young man who got in over his head. Sweet talked by a man with a forked-tongue, a man who preys on people like Credence. Broken people with nowhere to go.   
  
Broken people looking for love, for care, for someone to fix them and make them whole.   
  
Grindelwald’s followers are made up of some of these people but the sources Graves has heard from says it goes deeper with Credence Barebone. Graves doesn’t know what that means yet but he has an idea.   
  
It gains him some sympathy, merely because Graves knows what Credence’s home life was like before he ran away, but not much. Because he ran away and didn’t better himself, chose to be what his adopted mother made him, and the choice to follow in evil’s path is where Graves’ sympathy ends.   
  
“Any truth I give you willingly means I’ll be killed for it,” Credence says quietly.   
  
“They’d have to get to you first, Credence, and only then could they find out you gave me the truth willingly. You think that’s a possibility once you’re in Attermarc?”   
  
“Anything is a possibility with him,” Credence mutters and it sounds like it hurts to say.   
  
Graves shrugs. “So he’s made you believe,” he says. “Men like Grindelwald always fall, Credence. Always. It’s why there’s been no takeover of wizardkind and no-maj alike since ancient times. He’ll fall like all the others. You can fall with him, if you force me to find the truth on my own. Or you can save yourself a little pain and talk to me.”   
  
Credence laughs and looks at Graves. “What’s saving myself a little pain? Attermarc for life rather than immediate execution after you cast your guilty vote?”   
  
“That depends,” Graves says. “You give me every bit of the truth. Answer every question honestly. Tie up loose ends for my department. I’ll get your sentence reduced. You force my hand at any point during this? Life.”   
  
Credence shakes his head. “I get a reduced sentence, which could still mean forty years, for all I know, and I walk out of prison and they kill me anyway.”   
  
“Probably not forty years,” Graves says with a smirk. “It would take a long grudge and a very dedicated follower to wait until you’re out of prison to kill you when Grindelwald will have long been dead or locked away himself.”   
  
“You’re very confident,” Credence says bitterly. “You’ve never met him. You don’t know what he’s capable of. You don’t know how strong he is.”   
  
“But I can know those things, Credence,” Graves says. “You can tell me right now.”   
  
Credence doesn’t answer, looking down at the table, his shoulders slumped, rather than straight and defiant, the way they were when Graves walked in. Graves observes him for a while.   
  
“Is it fear or devotion?”   
  
“You’ve never met him,” Credence repeats and his voice cracks.   
  
“A bit of both then.”   
  
“Fuck you.”   
  
Graves smiles and leans back in the chair as he watches Credence. “I’m afraid we don’t have all the time in the world,” he says. “You haven’t made your choice but I think we both know you’re leaning toward telling me to go fuck myself one too many times and finding yourself a lifer.”   
  
Credence looks at Graves and his eyes are bright with tears, his face faintly red with the effort to hold them in, and normally Graves doesn’t give a single shit about tears, but Credence’s are different. He’s not mourning a future, not feeling sorry for himself knowing he’s going to be in a cell for a long time.   
  
He’s mourning his decision that led to him putting himself in the seat he’s in now. That he was pushed into this by his mother, by the way she warped his mind, made him desperate for somewhere to belong.   
  
He wishes he could go back and change things, Graves knows, and not just because he can see it played out behind Credence’s eyes. But because he knows those types of tears when he sees them.   
  
“I don’t know how,” Credence says, voice stronger than he looks.   
  
“To tell the truth?” Graves asks.   
  
Credence nods. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to tell you the things I’ve seen or heard. The things I know.”   
  
“The things you’ve done,” Graves says and smiles bitterly when Credence’s eyes dart away and a tear falls down his cheek. “I’ll make it easy on you by asking the questions.”   
  
“Are we going to be in here all night?”   
  
“I have a feeling this is going to take much longer than a single night,” Graves says. “No, we are not. I’ll ask you more pressing questions tonight and we’ll continue tomorrow. Preferably with a lot of coffee. I do apologize but I’m sending you for a haircut.”   
  
Credence frowns for a while, like he can’t quite comprehend that. “What?” he finally asks. “Why?”   
  
“Because I’m going to ask you to look me in the eye when you talk to me.”   
  
“I can pull it back,” Credence says moodily.   
  
Graves chuckles. “You could,” he says. “Prisoners also don’t have the luxury of long hair. Grown attached to your disguise?”   
  
Credence shrugs. “I’ve walked right by some of yours because of my disguise,” he says. “Of course I have.”   
  
“I’d like to hear those stories too,” Graves says and smirks. “What other safehouses are in New York?”   
  
“Fuck,” Credence sighs and looks away. When Graves tsks, he looks back at him with a glare. “There are several and they’ll all be empty tonight.”   
  
“They’ll fill up again,” Graves says. He pulls out his wand and conjures a notepad and pen before tucking it away. “Let’s start with Manhattan.”   
  
“Can I have a cup of coffee now?” Credence asks dully.   
  
“Only if you’re good. You get no privileges until you behave for me. Demonstrate for me that you can be truthful and we’ll see about a cup of coffee.”   
  
Credence stares at Graves, his cheeks still pink, but the tears are gone. He closes his eyes and breathes in deeply before he sighs and nods.   
  
“The deli on Essex and Stanton. Do you know it?”   
  
“Lower East Side. I do.”   
  
“You really don’t.”   
  
Graves smiles. “Then tell me all about it, Mister Barebone.”   
  
——   
  
After spending two hours with Credence and sending him off to a cell for the rest of the morning, Graves visits his department upstairs and ensures reports are being written. He gives all of the pressing information he’d learned from Credence to Jauncey and heads home.   
  
He’ll be in late to catch up on some sleep before he spends all day in an interrogation room with Credence Barebone.   
  
The rest of his associates haven’t been so easy to convince to start talking and some will never, would rather die, but Credence is a survivor. He wants to keep surviving and so he’ll talk.   
  
They’ll get a few more to talk over the next couple of days or weeks and corroborate all Credence has to say, if they know it. Not that Graves won’t know the truth himself, but it’ll be interesting to see if they know different truths, depending on what they were trusted with.   
  
Most of the people they’d arrested are lackeys. Credence is supposedly in the inner circle and he is the most interesting to Graves because of it.   
  
Graves has a lot on his mind and it’s always hard to sleep after a raid, replaying it over and over again, and he might normally take a sleeping draught, but he doesn’t. He gets decent enough sleep, broken up by nightmares here and there, but a strongly brewed shot of espresso before he gets ready for work helps.   
  
He floos into MACUSA around eleven and checks in on his department. All Aurors were accounted for last night but Night had to be sent to St Lyptus’. Fontaine informs Graves he’s back home now and interrogations have been going as smoothly as they can. They break into the minds of those that would otherwise never speak and are finding excellent information, but nothing that points them in Grindelwald’s direction.   
  
Graves thinks he’s going to get that from Credence.   
  
It’ll help greatly, of course, but Grindelwald will know this has happened. He’ll know Credence Barebone is in MACUSA’s cells and whether he speaks willingly or not, he will be giving them all they want.   
  
Grindelwald will be changing things to fit that new reality, likely has plans for it already, but that’s alright.   
  
After Graves is done with Credence they’ll be a few steps ahead of anything Grindelwald had been planning.   
  
He sends a memo from his office off to the cafeteria and heads down to the cells with a file in his hands. The cells are four thick walls and the prisoners that stay here can’t communicate with each other, but there are guards and a few Aurors in place either way. They’ve been this full before, even fuller, but these are Grindelwald’s followers.   
  
Graves tells a guard to get Credence into interrogation room _C_ and walks down to it himself. He steps inside and conjures a large chalkboard on one wall. He’s going to want connections today, the biggest ones there are, and he’ll have his teams piece them together in the next few days while he continues to work with Credence.   
  
The security guard walks Credence into the room and leaves with a brisk nod, shutting the door behind himself.   
  
“Good morning, Mister Barebone,” Graves says and waves his wand at the chair, transfiguring it into something more comfortable. “Sit.”   
  
Credence’s hands are bound in front of him today and he looks tired, like he didn’t get a minute of sleep, and the gauntness of his face is more visible now.   
  
He’s gotten that haircut and he doesn’t look happy about it. It’s been cut short, not enough left to even attempt to style it for his day in court, and it only makes Credence look more vulnerable. His sharp cheekbones and the cut of his jaw are more visible and while it makes him look his age, if not older, there’s something softer about him all the same.   
  
Graves watches him sit and transfigures his own chair into something more comfortable for the day. He sits down and leans back, watching Credence’s eyes fall to his lap.   
  
“Sleep well?”   
  
He gets the finger for his troubles and smirks a little. “These cells are more comfortable than the ones you’ll find in Attermarc,” he says and opens the file on the table. “I had this written last night. Read all of it.” He slides their offer, three pieces of paper stapled together, across the table to Credence.   
  
Credence frowns and looks at Graves before he reaches up and takes the offer. It’s harder to hold with his hands bound but he makes it work as he reads through it. His shoulders slump a little more the further he gets through it and his eyes lose whatever bit of life they had left.   
  
“Twelve years,” he finally says quietly. “Twelve years minimum and just for talking. But subject to change when I’ve been charged and potentially found guilty of other crimes.”   
  
Graves raises his eyebrows when Credence looks at him. “We already have charges pending, Mister Barebone,” he says. “Did you think speaking with me and reducing your sentence was going to mean no other charges could be filed?”   
  
Credence furrows his brow and looks away. “Why should I willingly speak with you if I’m going to rack up more years with whatever you decide to charge me with?”   
  
“If we charge you with anything beyond what we already have, it’ll be because we have proof of you having committed crimes, Credence,” Graves says. “Tell me the truth of those crimes and if we find proof of them, the years will be reduced from those as well.”   
  
“How can I trust you won’t charge me and convict me of crimes I didn’t commit?”   
  
“Association is a crime. If you didn’t have any association with certain crimes being committed, I will not charge you for them,” Graves says with a quirked eyebrow. “Some of us follow the letter of the law.”   
  
Credence sighs and reaches up, running his hand over his freshly cut hair. “Can’t just keep it at twelve years, can you?”   
  
“It would be nice to get out before your fortieth, wouldn’t it?” Graves asks and smiles when Credence purses his lips. “Give me Grindelwald on a silver platter and I’ll give you immunity.”   
  
“I can’t do that,” Credence mumbles. “You know I can’t.”   
  
“I do,” Graves says. “Twelve years is a gift, Credence, when it could be life.”   
  
There’s a knock on the door and Graves flicks his wrist to open it. The security guard comes in, using his wand to hold up a tray delivered from the cafeteria, and he levitates it down onto the table.   
  
“Anything else I can do, Director Graves?”   
  
“No, thank you,” Graves says. “This will do just fine.”   
  
The security guard nods and leaves and Graves locks the door. He looks over the tray holding two carafes of hot, fresh coffee, two mugs, cream and sugar, and a very large plate of various pastries, sweet rolls, bagels and muffins.   
  
“Should get us through the next couple of hours,” Graves says dryly and waves his hand at Credence’s magical bonds until they disappear. Credence looks surprised, stretching his hands and looking at Graves with a frown. “Easier on both of us. Try anything and prepare for a world of hurt.”   
  
Credence sighs and nods and grabs one of the coffee carafes. He pours himself a mug and adds quite a lot of cream and sugar. He doesn’t touch any of the food, not yet, but he will once he realizes he’s only going to be allowed this for as long as he’s in this room with Graves.   
  
“The board behind me will be written on as you and I speak,” Graves says as he pours himself a cup of coffee. “Today, you are going to tell me all about Grindelwald’s closest connections.”   
  
He can hear the chalk writing on the board, _Grindelwald_ with a large circle around it, he knows, and he watches as Credence follows the chalk’s movements.   
  
“You have to know most of them,” Credence says quietly and takes a drink of the coffee.   
  
His eyes are bright again and Graves thinks he’s starting to realize it.   
  
“Doesn’t matter what we know. I want to know what you know,” Graves says. “Who is in his closest circle? Who runs his operation for him? Reports directly to him?”   
  
Credence grabs a blueberry muffin and sniffs as he unwraps it. He picks off a piece and takes a bite and doesn’t bother wiping away a tear that falls.   
  
Graves waits patiently for him. Life as Credence knew it is long over and this is his new reality. It’s an understandable crack in his foundation and if Graves wants to keep him open and honest, he’ll need to be patient. Kind. Friendly. He’s done it a thousand times and yet there’s something different about Credence.   
  
It must be that he was Grindelwald’s and Grindelwald is a rare breed. It makes Credence rare as well and Graves is eager to hear anything he has to say, though he knows Credence is anything but eager to say it.   
  
“There are five,” Credence says after a while. “That he meets with two to four times a month, more sometimes. They do various different things for him. Recruiting, training, stealth missions, interrogation and clean up.”   
  
“Clean up meaning executing whoever he doesn’t kill himself.”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
“Interrogation goes hand in hand with clean up.”   
  
Credence nods. “Yes,” he says. “But breaking into minds and sending them off to be killed and disposed of after are still two different jobs.”   
  
Graves smiles wryly. “I know some things about working with different departments,” he says. “Criminal enterprises, broken up into departments just the same as MACUSA is. Who runs these departments?”   
  
After taking another bite of the blueberry muffin, Credence runs his hands over his head again and Graves suspects he’ll be doing it often. He sighs and licks his lips nervously.   
  
“I didn’t know what I was getting into when someone told me they wanted me to meet him. I didn’t even know who he was,” Credence says. “If he ever finds me, he’ll take one look at me and kill me for this.”   
  
“If is the key word,” Graves says. “I think you’re overestimating how much Grindelwald cares about you, Credence, in the sense that he’ll even come looking for you. Men like him write people like you off the moment you’re captured.”   
  
Credence peers at Graves for a while. “In most cases, I’m sure,” he says quietly. “He’s not most cases.”   
  
Graves looks over Credence’s face and sees that he believes it. Believes Grindelwald looks at him differently than everyone else and whether that’s because they were lovers or had a different sort of relationship, perhaps even a familial sort of one, Graves doesn’t know. He suspects he will soon and takes a drink of coffee.   
  
“Let’s start with those five names.”   
  
Graves and Credence spend two hours building Grindelwald’s circle on the chalkboard. Circles are linked with other circles, their jobs notated and described if necessary, and it’s good information. There are some people Graves hasn’t even heard of, while others they have thick files on, filled with reports of the very activities Credence describes. He doesn’t tell Credence what they know and he can see it’s taking a toll on him to be talking about any of this.   
  
He avoids himself for now, not placing _Credence Barebone_ in any of the circles, and Graves lets him get away with it.   
  
Credence drinks more coffee than Graves and eats a few different things off the tray. He leaves the cheese danishes for Graves, his favorites, but if it’s got chocolate in it, Credence eats it.   
  
They take a half hour break for the restroom and because Graves wants to check on a file in his department, but they’re back to it shortly after.   
  
It’s taking a toll on Credence, yes, but Graves thinks that’s because some sort of weight is being lifted from his shoulders and leaving him wrung out. He gets more and more tired as the day goes on and gets a little mixed up sometimes, but he finds his way back. But even as his exhaustion settles in, he smiles occasionally, whenever Graves has a comment to make about a particular witch or wizard.   
  
When it’s nearing four in the afternoon, Graves stands in front of the chalkboard and looks it over, his arms crossed. “This is fine work, Credence,” he says. “You’re doing good.”   
  
“Says the man putting me away for at least a dozen years,” Credence mutters. “This doesn’t feel good.”   
  
“I’m sure it doesn’t,” Graves says. “But you made your choice and sometimes we reap what we sow.” He looks at Credence, who is frowning down at his lap. “I think it’s time for a little more truth.”   
  
Credence looks at Graves, irritated. “I’ve told you the truth, you know I have.”   
  
“As far as what’s on the board? Yes, you have,” Graves says and walks to the table. He leans against the edge of it, near Credence, and smiles when Credence looks warily up at him. “But you’ve been very careful to leave yourself off of it. You tell me where you belong up there and we’ll finish for the day.”   
  
Credence rubs his hand over his face and sighs. He looks up at the board. “I’ve only known him for two years,” he says quietly. “Personally. And he taught me a lot for the first year, didn’t really send me anywhere until he thought I was ready. He says I’m powerful. That my magic is stronger than most people he knows. Closer to his than he’s seen in a long time. I know my magic is powerful but I think he might have been exaggerating some.”   
  
“Why would he do that?”   
  
“Because it made me feel special,” Credence says. “You know that.” He frowns a little and shakes his head. “He has me do certain things but he keeps me close most of the time.”   
  
Graves looks over Credence’s face as he touches his hair again. “How would you describe the relationship you have with him?”   
  
Credence frowns more obstinately. “Professional,” he says and looks up at Graves. When Graves only raises an eyebrow, Credence shrugs. “Mutually beneficial.”   
  
Graves smirks. “Oh? What do you get out of it, Credence, that’s as beneficial as what he gets out of you?”   
  
The look on Credence’s face speaks plenty of what he’d like to say to Graves, but doesn’t. “I do what work he asks of me because I’m close enough to him that it makes it easy,” he says and his voice wavers now, with what sounds like the beginning of tears. “People are afraid of me for being associated with him so they tend to give me what I want or do as I say.”   
  
“And what does he give you in return? Safety? Comfort?”   
  
Credence shrugs and looks away. “A place to belong with someone who cares about me too.”   
  
“You think he cares about you?”   
  
Credence looks at Graves then and the intensity of his gaze makes Graves’ heart seize, because he doesn’t know if he wants to reach for his wand or stay exactly as he is, unintimidated. He chooses the latter.   
  
“I know he does,” Credence says, low and firm. “I don’t have to read his mind to know it.”   
  
They stare at each other for a while and Graves knows this to be true. Rather, he knows Credence believes this as the complete truth. Whether it is or not he may never know, depending on who captures Grindelwald or if he’s killed.   
  
“Are you lovers?” Graves asks.   
  
Credence looks angry at the question but he had to have expected it to come. He purses his lips and his eyes are bright but he blinks a few times and it’s gone once more.   
  
“Does it matter? You don’t seem to believe he’s capable of caring about me or that he’ll come looking for me anyway.”   
  
“You’re smart enough to know it matters greatly.”   
  
“We’re not lovers.”   
  
Graves tilts his head when Credence lowers his eyes again. “But you were,” he says, because he can hear that truth in Credence’s voice. “What stopped it?”   
  
“You know my place now on the board, Mister Graves. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I want to sleep.”   
  
“You don’t get to make demands here, Credence,” Graves reminds him. “What stopped it? What keeps you close?”   
  
Credence looks up at the ceiling in frustration and he’s gripping the fabric of his trousers tightly. He looks at Graves. “Because I still have a place I belong,” he says. “Even if we don’t sleep together anymore. We only did because I wanted to. He… indulged me, but I got tired of that eventually and stopped. He’s respected that because he cares about me.”   
  
Graves sees the truth in Credence’s eyes. He won’t necessarily judge Credence’s taste in men - it has far more to do with charm and power than looks, he’s sure - but he still wonders why Credence wanted it with Grindelwald. There could be many reasons but Graves isn’t there to pick apart his decisions.   
  
“You wanted more from him than he offered.”   
  
“Not really _him,”_ Credence says and sniffs, looking away. “It could’ve been anyone that talked to me the way he did. We just happened to find each other at the right time, I suppose.”   
  
Graves nods and looks at the wall in front of him. It would be easy for Credence to latch onto the first person that sweet talked him, Graves already knew that, but this certainly changes how they’ll view and pursue different things in the investigation.   
  
“Can it not say that?” Credence asks tiredly.   
  
Graves frowns and looks at him. He’s looking at the chalkboard and Graves looks at it.   
  
There’s a circle next to Grindelwald’s with Credence’s name in it and it’s simply labeled as _lover,_ connected to Grindelwald’s circle by one line, which connects Credence to everyone else. Graves chuckles and shrugs when Credence scowls.   
  
“I don’t put the charm on the chalk,” he says and claps Credence on the shoulder as he stands. “You did well. Eat your dinner when they bring it and get as much rest as you can. We’re doing this all day tomorrow too.” He gestures at Credence’s hands.   
  
Credence looks reluctant but he lifts them, holding his wrists close together, and Graves puts the magical bonds back on them. “When do I go to Attermarc?”   
  
“When you’ve given me all you can give me,” Graves says. “However long that takes.”   
  
When Credence looks up at Graves, there’s something in his gaze that’s familiar to Graves, though he doesn’t see it often in an interrogation room. Not this way, in this manner. There’s a plea there, for a better deal, for a kind word or two, for mercy, or something else entirely.   
  
Graves has neither the time nor the inclination to give him anything. He feels a pity for Credence, sympathy for what pushed him into Grindelwald’s fold, but it was Credence’s choices that landed him in a cell either way.   
  
He walks to the door and opens it, gesturing for Credence to follow. Credence does so and he doesn’t look at Graves when he walks into the hall. Graves follows him out as the security guard comes to meet Credence and take him back to his cell. He watches Credence go, his head bent forward as if a heavy weight sits on his neck.   
  
Choices define people, Graves knows. He chose his path in life and it defines him as a person. Credence chose his and he’s beginning to accept the gravity and consequences of his type of choice.   
  
It’s a shame but Graves has seen many people Credence’s age and far younger go down the same path. He’ll keep seeing it until he retires or he’s dead.   
  
Once he’s grabbed the chalk, Graves goes upstairs to his department and conjures another chalkboard on the floor. He tells the chalk to recreate the board downstairs and tells his Aurors to get to work.   
  
Graves locks himself in his office after and sits at his desk, leaning back in his chair. He stares down at the top of his desk and around the room, so familiar to him, rich in color and design. His choices and his rewards.   
  
If they pin a murder on Credence, let alone more than one, Credence will see a very different view for the rest of his life.   
  
Pushing that thought aside, Graves waves his hand at the stack of paperwork on the corner of his desk and gets to work, so he might be able to go home and get some dinner and sleep himself.   
  
——   
  
Graves gets to work far earlier than yesterday and spends a couple of hours in his department, working with Fontaine’s team. He’s updated on interrogations and further arrests, what’s been found beneath the manor, which is still being worked on.   
  
They’re keeping up close and constant communication with Ministries overseas who are monitoring Grindelwald’s movements as best they can. He’s gone quiet for now, but they expect him to rear his ugly head soon, and tell Graves to be prepared for him to turn his eyes to America.   
  
Graves is already thoroughly prepared for that.   
  
He thinks of Credence and his belief that someone will be looking to kill him if they know he is giving up everything willingly. His belief that Grindelwald might come looking for him.   
  
It gives him a few ideas and he takes his Captains into his office and runs them by them. They’re in agreement with him but he tells them he’ll decide by the time he’s finished with Credence. It’s possible that they can’t go through with plans if Credence won’t cooperate or if he’ll turn the moment he can.   
  
Graves doesn’t have a clear answer to that. Not yet.   
  
He visits Sera to talk to her about the entire situation, as he’s had little time to do so himself. They don’t speak for long and she doesn’t tell him what she’d like done because she trusts him to make sure it’s handled well.   
  
If there’s anything Graves is good at, it’s handling shitshows well.   
  
He orders breakfast and coffee from the cafeteria and takes the lift downstairs. Some interrogations are still happening but beyond Credence they’ll conclude today and most of the prisoners will be sent to Attermarc to await trials.   
  
Graves has a guard fetch Credence and walks into the interrogation room, hanging his coat on the back of his chair. It’s been cleaned and the chalkboard is waiting for new information to be written on it, but Graves has a notepad and a pen today for his own notes.   
  
He sits down at the table and Credence is led inside by the guard who closes the door after him.   
  
“Good morning, Mister Barebone,” Graves says and gestures at the chair across from him.   
  
“Good morning, Percy,” Credence mutters and sits down.   
  
Graves smirks a little as he watches him. He looks tired still, not likely sleeping well, which is only understandable. There’s some defiance back in his shoulders, probably as a result from knowing what Graves knows about him now, but he isn’t meeting Graves’ eye all the same.   
  
“What are we working on today?” Credence asks, shifting uncomfortably when Graves doesn’t say anything.   
  
“When, where and how,” Graves says. “For the past two years.”   
  
“That’s a lot of when, where and how.”   
  
“It is. Which is why you’ll be here for a while yet,” Graves says and taps his pen against the notepad. “Before we begin that,” he adds. “Tell me why you’re so confident Grindelwald still has an interest in you. It’s more than caring about you if he’d go so far as to try and find you here.”   
  
“I told you,” Credence says and looks up at Graves. “My magic is powerful.”   
  
“And he uses it in what ways?”   
  
Credence looks uncomfortable and bites his lip. “He’s gathering followers for a reason,” he says quietly. “You need an army to start a war.”   
  
“Are you one of his weapons?”   
  
“He’s been helping me harness the power I have. To have more control over it.”   
  
Graves peers at Credence and taps his pen. “Tell me about that,” he says. “What control did you lack before Grindelwald?”   
  
Credence sighs. “Even with… even with my wand, my magic isn’t always within my control. It manifests as violence sometimes. Destructive curses without use of my wand. I don’t mean for it to, I try to stop it, and I’ve mostly… mostly gotten it under control, with his help. But my wandwork is powerful.”   
  
“When did it first start becoming uncontrollable?” Graves asks.   
  
“It has been since I was a child. My mother tried to beat it out of me for six years,” Credence says and looks down at the table. “She never could. It just got worse. I ran away and found other wizards and did small time jobs for a long time. It wasn’t until two years ago someone told me my magic was being wasted, after they saw it, and led me to him. He was interested in my magic from the start.”   
  
Graves leans back in his chair and watches Credence.   
  
No Ilvermorny, no chance to become normal, no chance at being surrounded by people that would be interested in helping him, rather than interested in using him. Graves knows what Credence is saying is true, however impossible it should be at his age, and Credence speaks about it as if it’s normal.   
  
Because no one ever told him any different. They only ever told him he was powerful and what good he could do with his power. Of course a man like Grindelwald would take advantage and not inform Credence that he is wholly unique.   
  
Wouldn’t want to risk Credence getting confident, getting arrogant, becoming a danger to Grindelwald’s message and to Grindelwald himself. He told Credence he was special, yes, but likely has made it seem he is still one of many.   
  
The magical bonds on Credence’s wrists don’t allow him to use any magic. Graves doesn’t know how good he is at wandless magic, not likely good at all, not yet, and he says he has his magic under control. Graves would have felt differently yesterday and yet he wonders if Credence could have used wandless magic to try and escape. Or to try and simply hurt Graves himself.   
  
It either didn’t cross his mind, he can’t actually control it, or he’s smart enough to know what would happen to him if he tried.   
  
Breakfast comes then and Graves lets the guard in and looks at the spread for today. Two coffee carafes and milk and sugar for Credence, but a more substantial breakfast, with eggs and mounds of toast, different jams, bacon and sausages, and fruit.   
  
He takes off the magical bind between Credence’s wrists, so they’re not held together anymore, but he leaves them on his wrists and Credence frowns at him.   
  
“I told you I can control it.”   
  
“You told me you _mostly_ can control it. Wouldn’t want you to lose control.”   
  
“That wouldn’t happen,” Credence mutters as he pours himself coffee. Once he’s added cream and sugar, he fills a plate with food. “I’m not looking to add on a life sentence.”   
  
“And yet you still said _mostly,”_ Graves says and smiles when Credence shoots him a look. “What does uncontrollable magic look like? What does violence and destructive curses look like?”   
  
“It happens when I’m upset, the way it does for children,” Credence says quietly. “The more my mother beat me the more it lashed out. It never hurt her. It destroyed things, like the kitchen table or… or the windows, it would blow them out. Sometimes it would come out as curses, like a Reducto curse, though I didn’t know it at the time. Most times things just happened to our home. When I put a hole through the church roof and my mother whipped me more than she ever had, I ran away. I got older but sometimes I’d get upset for… for whatever reason and the magic I was learning, different hexes and curses and jinxes, they’d be cast without my wand. Never an Unforgivable Curse, before you ask,” he adds moodily and takes a bite of a piece of bacon.   
  
Graves smiles and spreads strawberry jam on a piece of toast. “You know that it’s unusual for magic to show itself like this,” he says. “Did you ever try to find out why it was for you?”   
  
“I was always told by everyone I talked to about it that it was because of what my mother did to me,” Credence says and shrugs. “Grindelwald said the same thing. That it happens when someone tries to repress magic but magic fights back.”   
  
Graves takes a bite of the toast and thinks that Credence might have become an Obscurus when he was a child, if his magic hadn’t fought back. He’d be dead now, a mere memory, never a pawn of Grindelwald’s.   
  
Grindelwald is teaching Credence to control it so he can hurt people, that’s clear. To make him dangerous, a killing machine, and yet the young man that sits in front of him isn’t that. He was only looking for a place to belong and he took physical comfort in the man that he doesn’t realize has been lying to him. Of course Grindelwald would give him what he sought if it meant Credence’s devotion to him would grow stronger.   
  
Credence’s magic behaves in a way Graves has never heard of outside of an Obscurus and children. It’s dangerous like an Obscurus but never manifested as the parasite it could have been. He makes the perfect weapon and yet Credence is still vulnerable. He isn’t what Grindelwald wants him to be - not yet. It would come in time with more manipulation, until Credence was warped into a person he currently isn’t, and Graves thinks that Credence may be right.   
  
That Grindelwald won’t have written him off at all. That he’ll still want his weapon and rescuing him from prison would show a devotion to Credence that will solidify his belief in Grindelwald, in his message.   
  
Graves drinks his coffee and watches Credence and knows Grindelwald is coming.   
  
He knows it without a doubt now. He’s coming to America to find Credence, just like Credence said, but he doesn’t know the true extent as to why. Grindelwald may care about him but it’s not the care that Credence craves and not for the reasons he wants either.   
  
Graves can’t put him in Attermarc, that’s for certain, but he’ll have to make it look like he did. If Grindelwald strikes Attermarc and they’re prepared for it, it’s a possible way to take him down. Credence will have to be somewhere else, somewhere Grindelwald could never find him, and Graves will have to discuss it with Sera and his Captains to figure out where that might be. Safe for Credence and safe for everyone else too.   
  
His instinct is to not tell the rest of his Aurors about this. They’ve watched corruption happen overseas, Grindelwald’s message poisoning the minds of some Aurors there, and though Graves trusts them, for now, he doesn’t trust them with Credence Barebone.   
  
“What are you thinking about?” Credence asks warily as he piles a broken, runny egg on top of a piece of toast, looking between it and Graves.   
  
“Many things,” Graves says. “Mostly if my department came across unexplained magic that resulted in injury or death that you may have been responsible for.”   
  
Credence doesn’t look happy about that but he merely sighs. “Sounds like you want me to rot in prison,” he mutters. “I never killed anyone.”   
  
“Ever?”   
  
Credence only shrugs and eats his breakfast.   
  
Directly, no, Graves thinks, but possibly indirectly. He’ll delve into that another day.   
  
“You ready to get to work?” Graves asks instead and smirks when Credence raises an eyebrow and sends him a wry look. “You’re saving lives, Mister Barebone. Maybe one day that’ll feel good, like it should. No matter how many tears Grindelwald sheds for you because of it.”   
  
Credence huffs a laugh and shakes his head, smiling. “I told you when he finds me, he’s going to kill me on the spot.”   
  
“Maybe,” Graves says, knowing the truth is exactly the opposite, “maybe he’ll shed tears for his boy then too.”   
  
“Don’t call me that,” Credence says, but he’s not angry. He’s still smiling in fact and picks up his coffee, taking a drink. “I’m ready when you are.”   
  
“I am always ready to work on taking down Dark Arts practitioners. I thrive on it,” Graves says. “Take me back to day one.”   
  
Credence sighs, gently. But he talks.   
  
And he talks for a long time.   
  
He does good work again. They spend most of the day going over Grindelwald’s movements and operations, connecting dots and tying up loose ends to various different things that have happened, files never closed out. Credence speaks the truth and Graves is glad to make sense of some things finally. The Ministries overseas will be glad too.   
  
They’ll have to verify certain things and some they won’t be able to prove, but the more Credence tells Graves, the more he has to charge people with numerous crimes.   
  
The journey Credence took over the last two years is an interesting one, if nothing else. The way that he looks at himself, at his power, is warped in a variety of ways. Warped by his mother, warped by Grindelwald, and warped by Credence himself. Graves won’t tell him the truth, won’t give him any reason to see why he should stop talking.   
  
It could be beneficial to the investigation if he told Credence the truth and got more than the truth out of him. If he got his aid for the continued investigation going forward. If Credence helped hunt Grindelwald down because he turned against him.   
  
But it’s entirely possible it won’t go that way. Credence’s views on the wizarding world itself are skewed because he’s experienced nothing but pain from it, even while he thinks he was cared about and given a place to belong.   
  
Graves is tempted to get a Healer working with him but not yet. Not this soon, not while they still have plenty of work to do.   
  
When it’s later in the afternoon and lunch was had a couple of hours ago, Graves watches Credence pace around the room as he talks. Some things he’s glossed over, not to be difficult, but because there’s piles of information woven in them, and Graves has the next couple of days set already for what he plans on getting out of him.   
  
There’s a lull in the conversation and Credence looks over the chalkboard, at the things he’s most recently talked about, and his spine is straighter today. He doesn’t look as downtrodden or exhausted and Graves thinks again that this is a burden being lifted off of him. Credence might deny that, might pledge loyalty to the man he’s so sure is going to kill him, but it’s interesting to watch.   
  
Graves can capitalize on it later.   
  
“We can stop here for today,” Graves says and closes his notepad, filled with notes and thoughts of his own. He puts it in the pocket of his waistcoat, his suit jacket shed long ago.   
  
Credence sighs when he looks at Graves, stretching his arms above his head. “Thank Merlin,” he mutters. “The more I talk the clearer my tombstone looks.”   
  
Graves chuckles and stands, pulling his jacket on. “You underestimate MACUSA’s ability to keep you out of harm’s way.”   
  
“You underestimate Grindelwald in every way,” Credence says. “He could blast this place apart if he wanted to.”   
  
“And yet he wasn’t going to,” Graves says. “He wanted to wear my face and wander through it freely.”   
  
“Which is off the table now.”   
  
“Doesn’t mean he hasn’t thought of other ways to do it but you know that already,” Graves says and leans against the table, crossing his arms.   
  
Credence merely hums and doesn’t reply to that. He looks at the board and away, sighing. “A lot of people I’ve known for two years are going to lose their lives over the coming weeks and months.”   
  
“And you’ll be saving countless because of it,” Graves reminds him. “Something tells me that’s not a terrible thought to you.”   
  
Credence shrugs. “It doesn’t mean I want my friends to die though. Casualties are a part of war anyway,” he says and looks down at the ground. “He’s right, you know. Why should we have to hide who we are while no-majs get to live freely? Why do we have to be afraid?”   
  
“The law allows both worlds to live freely, Credence,” Graves says. “You know that, deep down. If our worlds combined it would embolden both wizardkind and no-majs. Far more blood would be shed and each time it happened tensions would be raised higher and higher. The law protects us both. Grindelwald wants an army to give none of us any choice when it comes to exposure but he has no plans for attempting harmony with no-majs. They’ll be sheep for slaughter when he decides it. You know this, we know this, most of his followers know this. Some are blinded, some just pretend they are. How well did you sleep at night, Credence, knowing the blood you would spill as his weapon?”   
  
“Better than I sleep here,” Credence says hoarsely, his eyes bright and anger held in his shoulders. “How do you sleep at night, cowering in fear?”   
  
“Those are Grindelwald’s words, not yours,” Graves says. “You slept better because it wasn’t a reality yet. You face a new reality now. You’re not a cold blooded killer, Credence. I don’t have to read your mind to know you’re full of shit.”   
  
“Fuck you,” Credence says and glares at Graves. “You don’t know anything about me.”   
  
“I know plenty about you, Credence,” Graves says. “You were an abused boy and you’re an abused man. You think you found somewhere you belong but that place seeks to use you and manipulate you into being a weapon. The same way you’ve been used and manipulated your entire life. No one in that world gives a damn about who you are, Credence. Grindelwald cares about the magic in your blood. Not who you are.”   
  
“That’s not true,” Credence says angrily. “You have no idea how much time I’ve spent with him. You have no idea the things we’ve talked about. The things he _wants_ to talk about with me. He’s the only one that’s ever told me I didn’t do anything to deserve the shit I was dealt when I was a child and to mean it. To try and get me to believe it.”   
  
“It’s easy to manipulate someone when you know everything about them. Their deepest, darkest secrets,” Graves says quietly. “You yourself have said he’s going to kill you the second he looks at you. Why do you defend him?”   
  
“Because it means I wasn’t loyal! I wasn’t loyal the way I had sworn I would be!” Credence says. “I’m betraying him! That doesn’t mean he didn’t do those things for me. He’s the only person who has ever made me feel normal.”   
  
Graves watches Credence as he fights tears, as he breathes deeply, and thinks he looks young again. Vulnerable and afraid. Everything that Grindelwald has taken advantage of and deep down Credence must know it, even if he’s denying it.   
  
“You are normal, Credence,” Graves says. “And it wasn’t your fault that your mother did what she did to you. Anyone in our world would think the same. Grindelwald tells you it because he wants your loyalty. Not because he wants you to heal from your past. That’s not the type of man he is.”   
  
Credence shakes his head and reaches up to wipe tears away when they fall. “You don’t know anything about the time we’ve spent together. You don’t know how much he’s helped me.”   
  
“The man I’m looking at right now is just as broken as that thirteen year old boy who ran away. Look me in the eye and tell me any different.”   
  
Credence’s fists are clenched tightly at his sides and he looks angry enough to lash out, but the magic wrapped around his wrists prevents him from doing so. He’s crying still but he doesn’t look at Graves.   
  
Graves sighs and stands straight, moving within a few feet of Credence. He gestures for his wrists. “Eat dinner and get some rest. Another long day ahead of us,” he says. “You did good work.”   
  
Credence doesn’t hold up his wrists. “No special privileges earned today?” he asks with extreme bitterness.   
  
“Depends,” Graves says. “On what you want and if you’re going to lift those hands for me or if I’m going to have to force you to.”   
  
He looks like he’d rather lift his hand to give Graves a black eye but Credence does lift them and presses his wrists close together, still refusing to look at Graves. He puts the bond between his wrists so they’re connected again.   
  
“A sleeping draught,” Credence says quietly.   
  
“Nightmares or just can’t sleep?”   
  
“Nightmares that make it hard to go back to sleep,” Credence mumbles and lifts his shirt to wipe his nose on the collar.   
  
Graves pulls out his handkerchief and hands it to Credence so he hopefully never has to see that again and Credence does look at him then. With a heavy amount of suspicion, maybe, but he takes the handkerchief anyway and wipes his nose.   
  
“You would have it monogrammed,” Credence says with a shake of his head.   
  
Graves laughs. “How else am I supposed to know it’s mine?” he asks. He smiles when Credence ducks his head and suspects that’s to hide that he isn’t so angry anymore. “I’ll have a sleeping draught sent down tonight.”   
  
Credence nods his thanks and Graves leads him to the door, opening it and stepping into the hall, gesturing for the security guard at the end of it.   
  
“Good night, Mister Graves,” Credence says when he steps out of the room and into the hall near Graves.   
  
“Good night, Mister Barebone.”   
  
Graves watches him go, his head held up a little straighter today. When they turn the corner, Credence looks back at him, Graves’ handkerchief still held tightly in his hands, before he’s gone.   
  
He walks back into the interrogation room and grabs the chalk and his coat before heading back upstairs. He has an immense amount to go over with his Captains and expects it to be a long night.   
  
When he gets to his office, he sends a memo to the infirmary and a message to Jauncey that her day is starting early. He gives her half an hour to get to work and goes over various pressing reports on his desk until she comes in.   
  
Graves brings Fontaine, Barrows and Jauncey into his office. Once he’s told them none of it is going to leave his office and has their full attention, he lays out the ideas he is beginning to form about Credence Barebone.   
  
——   
  
Graves and Credence work in MACUSA for two more days. Long days, filled with an immense amount of important information, and there’s still more to delve into.   
  
Credence gets angry now and then, if he’s not perpetually annoyed with Graves, but he’s back to smiling, though that’s rarer. He looks the man he could have been when he does and Graves does have more sympathy for him than he did that first day, now that he knows the extent of what Grindelwald was doing to him. What plans he had for Credence.   
  
Sometimes Credence tries to make Graves angry but he’s heard far worse from far worse people and it mostly amuses him, which only makes Credence angry at himself. Graves telling him that it’s never the soft-hearted criminals that get to him seems to only make him angrier but that’s alright.   
  
MACUSA has numerous safehouses around the city, let alone around the country, but there’s one upstate in a small wizarding village. A MACUSA employee lives in the home but there is a large basement hidden beneath it and Graves had ordered it to be retrofitted from a safehouse to a prison with the comforts of protective custody.   
  
He gets woken up in the early morning hours by Jauncey, who tells him that Grindelwald has gotten into eastern Canada and Graves knows it’s time to move Credence.   
  
His Captains will be rotating who stays in the home, Apparating to the front step where no one will see them, protected with as many enchantments and charms as possible. It’s undetectable to anyone that might come looking, but they’re in the middle of nowhere, separated from no-majs, so Graves doesn’t expect any problems.   
  
When Graves arrives at work shortly after and has Credence taken out of his cell, he sends him to a small courtroom that Sera is giving them a ten minute window to Disapparate from. Fontaine and Barrows bring Credence into the courtroom while Graves waits for them and he sees that Credence looks frightened. He hasn’t been told anything yet and it’s understandable.   
  
Not much will be changing for the next few days besides Credence’s location. Graves and he will still discuss what Credence knows, until there’s nothing left to discuss. After that he’ll be given regular meals and more comforts than he would at Attermarc but Graves needs Credence to start trusting him. He needs Credence to shift his loyalty and become their weapon.   
  
When the time comes for it, when Graves makes the offer, he’ll see to it that Credence’s prison sentence is reduced to something that will seem more manageable.   
  
He still has to serve time but if he aids them in taking down Grindelwald, if he makes any of it possible, he’ll be rewarded for that. As far as his fears of being murdered once he’s free, there are ways MACUSA can offer aid in that matter as well, but Graves doesn’t think Credence will accept it.   
  
“All set?”   
  
“Jauncey’s given the all clear,” Barrows says with a nod.   
  
“Mister Barebone,” Graves says and gestures Credence closer. “Side-Along.”   
  
“To where?” Credence asks warily, his arms shackled behind his back.   
  
Graves nods at Fontaine and Fontaine puts something similar to a sleep mask over Credence’s eyes, that’s charmed to not let him see anything but a black void and causes a fuzziness in his ears as well, though he can still hear them if they speak next to him.   
  
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Credence asks but he sounds more frightened than angry. “Am I about to be walked down a plank?”   
  
Graves and Barrows chuckle. “Not quite, Mister Barebone,” Graves says and takes a hold of Credence’s arm. “Give me about a minute.”   
  
“Will do, Percy.”   
  
Graves Disapparates and appears on the front step of the modest home in the wizarding village, out of view of any eyes that could potentially be looking. Credence wobbles from the Apparition done blindly but Graves keeps a tight hold on him and pushes open the door. He leads Credence inside and looks around the home, the living areas outfitted to look like a smaller version of the Auror department.   
  
“Percy,” Jauncey says from her desk. “All set downstairs.”   
  
“Thank you, Captain,” Graves says and walks to the door that opens to a closet to anyone that doesn’t know what’s really behind it. Graves opens it and looks down at a staircase.   
  
Once Barrows and Fontaine have joined him, he gets Credence to take one step down before they remove his mask. He blinks rapidly and squints down the staircase before looking at Graves with a frown.   
  
Graves gestures for him to walk down it and they head into the basement, which has more desks and boards along the wall. There are two rooms now, one Credence’s new prison cell and the other their new interrogation room.   
  
He leads Credence to the cell and opens the door, walking him inside.   
  
The bed is more comfortable, a bit larger, and there’s a sofa and a bookshelf, not yet filled with books. A small desk sits in one corner and there are writing materials on it.   
  
Graves removes the middle bond between Credence’s wrists and he stretches his hands as he looks around. He looks at Graves and the fear in his eyes is gone.   
  
“I told you,” he says quietly. “That he’d come looking for me.”   
  
“I don’t want you dead quite yet, Mister Barebone,” Graves says with a faint smirk. “He won’t find you here.”   
  
Credence doesn’t look like he believes that but he moves to the bed and sits down on the edge of it.   
  
“We’ll start our day in about an hour,” Graves tells him and leaves the room. The door locks behind him and Graves and Fontaine head back upstairs to speak with Jauncey while Barrows stays in the basement with Credence.   
  
Jauncey tells him more about Grindelwald’s movements for a half hour or so and he sends her back to MACUSA with an order for the cafeteria. Fontaine follows her back to the department and Graves waits for food to arrive before taking it downstairs. He puts it in the interrogation room and gets a chalkboard set up while Barrows fetches Credence.   
  
Fontaine will be letting Barrows know any information that comes in about Grindelwald’s movements through North America, but Graves expects him to disappear for a while. If he reappears in New York, so be it. It puts him in Graves’ territory and when that happens, Graves will be able to go after him his way, with all the knowledge of other Ministries’ mistakes and faults.   
  
To put the bastard and as many of his followers down as he can.   
  
Credence walks into the room and Barrows nods at Graves before he closes the door. It locks behind him and Graves looks at Credence as he walks to a chair on his usual side of the table and sits heavily down.   
  
“You believe me now,” Credence says. “That he’ll try to find me.”   
  
Graves shrugs out of his coat and suit jacket. “I believe that Grindelwald will attempt something foolish. Whether that has to do with you or not remains to be seen. But I won’t have you fall into his grasp either. You’re safer here than at MACUSA.”   
  
“Thought MACUSA was supposed to be the safest place in America,” Credence mutters and looks at the magical bonds over his wrists.   
  
“It is, in most ways,” Graves says. “It’s major flaw is that everyone knows where it is. No one knows where this is.”   
  
Credence looks around the room and bites his lip. “Why am I getting better accommodations?”   
  
“Because you have been oh so helpful,” Graves says and pours himself a cup of coffee. “Eat some food so we can get started.”   
  
“Is he in New York?”   
  
“That’s not your concern.”   
  
“...I’d say it’s definitely my concern,” Credence says flatly and pours himself a cup of coffee as well.   
  
Graves smirks. “You let MACUSA worry about Grindelwald’s movements. Your only worry should be giving me everything you can because that was our deal,” he says. “We have a lot to go over.”   
  
“Are _we_ in New York still?”   
  
“You want to try and eat with your wrists bound together?”   
  
Credence rolls his eyes and puts food on his plate. “I used to eat out of trash cans. Threaten me with something more substantial.”   
  
“Grindelwald made you eat out of trash cans?”   
  
That gets Credence laughing.   
  
Always good to start a day of interrogation with laughter, so when Credence inevitably gets pissed at Graves, he might not try and take a swing at him.   
  
There’s something different about today’s work. Graves sees it in Credence, in the way he holds his shoulders, in the way he talks about things, like he’s telling a story versus trying to piece one together with reluctance. He’s not exactly animated but the words flow out of him with an ease they had yet to.   
  
Graves watches him throughout the day and his smile and laugh tell him more and more about the type of person Credence is at heart. Not the heartless monster Grindelwald is trying to make him, not the man who truly thinks no-majs are _other_ and don’t deserve protection, not the out of control abused man that drives him to seek out those that continue the abuse, without him quite realizing it.   
  
Credence has a soft heart. There’s something sweet about him when he’s not worrying about what they’re speaking about, when he’s not fretting about Grindelwald tracking him down to murder him.   
  
It’s who he would have been if none of it had happened. If he was born into a wizarding family who loved him and nurtured him, he would have become a fine young man. Powerful, yes, but not out of control. Popular at Ilvermorny with the talent and smarts to get him job offers before leaving school.   
  
He would have been someone Graves would be impressed by. That he would like and enjoy the company of.   
  
More too, but that’s not a thought to delve into.   
  
Credence feels safer here than at MACUSA, even if he doesn't want to believe he truly is. He is glad to be away from there because of what he thinks Grindelwald is going to do to him. It’s easier to release the burden he’s been carrying for many years, these last two years especially, when he doesn’t have to worry about the door being blasted down and a wand pointed at him.   
  
Graves thinks Grindelwald would be anything but cruel if he were to find Credence and it makes his skin crawl, because he knows Credence would fall for it. That he’d latch onto the kindness and understanding Grindelwald would show him and forget what he knows to be true.   
  
The information that Graves and Credence put together today will lead to arrests and raids overseas in time, with the knowledge of how Grindelwald has been doing so much of his work in secret, and how he might try to pick it back up.   
  
There’s even more to go over than Graves had been expecting for today and by six they’re both hungry for dinner and Graves is debating getting some and continuing work or going back to the office and working from there.   
  
Fontaine has only come by once and it had to do with unusual werewolf activity in Boston. Likely a result of Grindelwald’s impending arrival in New York and Graves told him to keep an eye on it, but there’s nothing about Grindelwald yet.   
  
“You up for another couple of hours?” Graves asks Credence.   
  
Credence is sitting across from him, in a comfortable armchair he’d conned Graves into transfiguring for him. He’s got his bare feet on it, his knees pulled to his chest, and looks much smaller than he actually is. He shrugs when he looks at Graves.   
  
“Only if I get to eat first,” he says. “And enjoy it all the way through before you ask me another thousand questions.”   
  
Graves laughs. “What did I say about making demands?” he asks. When Credence merely shrugs again, he sighs. “I’d like to enjoy my dinner too. I’ll order something, have Fontaine bring it, he’ll like that.”   
  
Credence smiles and rests his chin on his knees. “Can I have some cheesecake?”   
  
“You haven’t been cheesecake good,” Graves says and stands. He leaves the interrogation room and finds Barrows upstairs, who will be here for another couple hours himself before Jauncey comes to start her shift.   
  
He sends Barrows off with a piece of paper that makes him laugh and walks back downstairs to join Credence. He’s still sitting in the armchair when Graves walks in and closes the door behind himself. There’s not much he can do, no weapons or anything that could be used as one, since Graves vanishes all plates, cups and utensils when they’re done with them.   
  
It’s still encouraging to see Credence hasn’t gotten up to look for anything.   
  
He can’t get out of here. The magical bonds around his wrists prevent magic use but the door at the top of the stairs won’t let him through either, not when it’s closed. If Credence ever got past it, got past Aurors and got outside, their department in MACUSA would be alerted and he wouldn’t make it out of the village.   
  
It would be bad for Credence if he attempted an escape and Graves doesn’t think he will because he’s a survivor, but desperation makes people do stupid things.   
  
Credence is already a perfect example of that, Graves thinks wryly as he sits across from him.   
  
“What does it take to be cheesecake good?” Credence asks boredly.   
  
“For you to stop pretending you weren’t involved in some way in that attack and interrogation of the Russian wandmaker a year ago,” Graves says and puts his hands behind his head.   
  
Credence sighs and looks away. “I already told you I had no involvement with the attack and interrogation.”   
  
“But you were there and won’t tell me why. This puts a damper on our relationship, Credence.”   
  
“Such a strong relationship it is,” Credence says moodily. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”   
  
“No,” Graves agrees. “And yet you were involved all the same. I told you what happens if you force me to get the truth myself.”   
  
Credence shoots him a glare. “It’s personal. It has nothing to do with what happened that night.”   
  
Graves raises his eyebrows. “I’m sorry, you had a personal experience in Russia at a wandmaker’s shop while he was being attacked and interrogated by Grindelwald himself?”   
  
Credence’s cheeks turn pink and he looks away, shrugging a shoulder, like an obstinate teenager. Graves is annoyed by it but he doesn’t show it and holds out a hand expectantly.   
  
“It was my first time accompanying them on that sort of… job, I suppose,” Credence mutters. “I told you he kept me close the first year. I’d never seen what happened that night and I had to step out part of the way through it.”   
  
Graves peers at Credence, at the color on his cheeks and the way he wets his lips nervously, and thinks he has an idea where this might be going. The timing surprises him, a year into knowing Grindelwald, but he’ll let Credence explain that.   
  
“Seeing a Cruciatus Curse to the extent it was used that night might shake anyone up,” Graves says. “You had to get some air. What happened after?”   
  
“Mel tried to get me to go back in. She said I was going to have to learn to look at it and do it someday and it was embarrassing to Grindelwald that I couldn’t stomach it. He was there then and told her to please try not to speak for him because he was capable of doing it himself,” Credence says and stares down at his knees as he speaks. “He comforted me. Helped soothe my fears.”   
  
“For the first time?”   
  
“No,” Credence says. “But in that way, yes.”   
  
“So a physical relationship didn’t start until a year into knowing Grindelwald.”   
  
“He knew I wanted it before then,” Credence says and sounds ashamed for the first time. “I never dared to ask for it, but I know he knew I wanted it. He gave it to me that night.”   
  
Graves can judge Grindelwald for the frankly disturbing location of getting physical with Credence, but he can’t judge Credence for it. A distraction and something that might have felt good, in a few different ways, from a horror he’d just seen and not coped with well.   
  
He’s also disgusted that Grindelwald chose that time to begin manipulating Credence in this way, taking advantage of his state. Credence doesn’t realize the depth of it, or doesn’t dare to examine it anyway, and Graves rubs his eyes, because his sympathy for Credence grows every day and his hatred for Grindelwald does too.   
  
“I know it was fucked up timing,” Credence says quietly, shamefully. “None of the other times were like that.”   
  
_Oh good,_ Graves wants to say, with all the sarcasm he possesses, but he doesn’t. He sighs and looks over Credence’s face.   
  
“How long did it go on for?”   
  
“Six months,” Credence says. “And he was sending me out more and more, to watch how things were done, so it only happened when I was home and he was training me. It wasn’t an everyday thing and it slowed down in the last couple of months anyway when I realized he was only indulging me and wouldn’t ever feel for me in a romantic way. I realized I didn’t feel for him in that way either and never had, but it was still comforting to be close to someone. I wanted to find someone to be with who saw me as something more.”   
  
“Didn’t find that in the last six months?”   
  
Credence shakes his head. “Too busy,” he says. “Training in the mountains and going on jobs. Coming back to New York to prepare for when he came here.”   
  
Graves nods and runs his hands through his hair as he looks up at the ceiling. He can’t imagine spending a single night with the slimy bastard but Grindelwald’s been able to charm thousands of people who have led lives nothing like Credence’s.   
  
“Guess it won’t be happening at all, now that I think about it,” Credence says dryly. “I told you my involvement that night but I think I should be given cheesecake to help me cope with the fact that I’ll never have it because I’ll be in prison or dead.”   
  
Graves smiles and shakes his head. “You won’t be in prison forever if we don’t dig up any bodies,” he says. “Plenty of time for finding someone who sees you as more than he did.”   
  
“I told you,” Credence says, not looking too bothered, “they’ll kill me if I’m ever released from prison.”   
  
“We’ll see about that,” Graves says and looks at the door when there’s a knock. He flicks his wrist and in walks Fontaine, holding a few paper bags and wearing a menacing frown.   
  
Graves smirks. “Thank you, Captain.”   
  
“Hire a house elf,” Fontaine says and squints at Credence. “Keep up the good work, Mister Barebone. You’re saving lives.”   
  
“So I’ve been told,” Credence says and rests his head on his arm, looking at the chalkboard.   
  
Fontaine squints at Graves instead and he waves him off until Fontaine shakes his head and leaves. The door closes tight and Graves stands, looking inside the bags.   
  
“Something a little finer than MACUSA fare,” Graves says as he pulls out a few containers. “Hope you like good Italian food.”   
  
There’s a large serving of spaghetti and meatballs made of veal and pork and another large serving of creamy alfredo with parmesan crusted chicken laid over it. They’ve also been given enough slices of focaccia to feed the entire Auror department, along with a boat of olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dip them in.   
  
“Merlin,” Credence says as he sits up more, scooting his chair closer to the table. “This is all I’m going to dream about the entire time I’m in Attermarc.”   
  
“You’re very lucky, most people get sent straight there without having known their last good meal was their _last_ good meal,” Graves says and smirks when Credence eyes him with disapproval. “I would have been getting this anyway so you might as well share it with me.”   
  
“Whose is whose?”   
  
“I like both, so take what you want.”   
  
“Can we split them?”   
  
“Sure,” Graves chuckles and pulls out his wand to conjure plates and utensils. He sees Credence looking at the one unopened bag and shrugs. “We’ll see if we can open that one if you’ve done well a couple hours from now.”   
  
“I feel like a fucking dog,” Credence says sourly. “Rewarded for good behavior with treats.”   
  
“Hey, I wasn’t the one asking for cheesecake. I can take it away, if you’d like, and reward you with nothing, if complaints are what I’m going to get.”   
  
Credence’s look could kill, if he were so inclined. “You’re rewarding me for betraying my friends and sending me to prison for a dozen plus years after,” he says. “Forgive me if I’m not entirely thankful for a slice of cheesecake.”   
  
Graves frowns. “Does that mean I get to have both?”   
  
“No,” Credence says defensively. “Because I gave you what you asked for and I deserve it. But I’m not going to grovel at your feet because of a temporary kindness when I know one day you’re going to lock me in a different cell and forget I exist until the day I’m _possibly_ let out.”   
  
Graves hums in thought as he sits down and opens the spaghetti container. “I’m sure I’ll remember you. At least once a year. Anniversary of catching or killing Grindelwald, you’ll probably pop into my head. Ah yes, _Mister Barebone,_ the one that made it possible in some way. I do hope he’s aging as nicely as I am.”   
  
“I’m going to throw this entire thing at you,” Credence says as he takes the lid off of the alfredo. “At least my hair won’t be white by the time I’m fifty.”   
  
Graves laughs. “Graveses don't go white, we stay silver,” he says. “Eat your fucking food, Credence.”   
  
Credence isn’t exactly in a good mood but they split the pastas and share the bread and oil. It’s good food, some of the best Italian cuisine in the city, and Graves can see that Credence is savoring every bite.   
  
“Are you not married because you’re an Auror?” Credence asks after a while, once he’s done soaking almost every inch of a piece of focaccia with oil.   
  
Graves raises his eyebrows. “What makes you think I’m going to answer any personal questions?”   
  
Credence shrugs. “What can I do with the knowledge of why you’re not married?”   
  
“It’s amazing what people can do with what seems like inconsequential information.”   
  
“Are you worried about criminals or _Witches Weekly?”_   
  
“Both,” Graves says. “I’ve been featured in _Witches Weekly_ one too many times. My personal life is not up for discussion.”   
  
“Are you not married because you’re an asshole?”   
  
“Do you think I’m an asshole all the time?”   
  
“It seems pretty built into you.”   
  
Graves shrugs. “Maybe,” he says, “and maybe not. Not up for discussion.”   
  
Credence twirls alfredo on his fork and takes a bite as he peers at Graves. “I bet it’s because you’re a workaholic _and_ an asshole.”   
  
“This is assuming I have any interest in marriage at all.”   
  
“So you don’t?”   
  
“It’s none of your business,” Graves says as he cuts a meatball and takes a bite. “I leave work at work when I go home and I leave my personal life at home when I come into work. You are not nearly special enough to learn any privileged information about me.”   
  
“I told you about my personal life.”   
  
Graves laughs. “I would have found out about it either way,” he says. “Thank Merlin I didn’t have to watch it play out in your memories. The unfortunate thing about this situation, Credence, is that I am on the side of the law and you are not and we aren’t friends.”   
  
“No,” Credence agrees and shrugs. “But I’ve spent four entire days with you. You assumed a lot about me. What makes you think I haven’t assumed a lot about you?”   
  
“I would hazard a guess that I’m more practiced in it than you are.”   
  
“Would you?”   
  
Graves looks at Credence and raises an eyebrow. “What makes you think differently?”   
  
“You’re good at reading people,” Credence says as he gazes at Graves. “In my experience only a few things in life make someone good at reading people. You got to be in the coveted position you are in part because of it. You knew how to read people before you became an Auror. Because you’re naturally good at it and empathetic or because you were forced to learn.” He shrugs and twirls more pasta onto his fork. “It’s not hard to see which is which. You’re forgetting that I learned at a young age how to read people too. Anticipating my mother’s moods when I was nine could mean the difference between more scars on my back or a night without blood.”   
  
Graves watches Credence as he looks back down at his food, getting another bite of it. He grabs a piece of bread himself and dips it in oil and takes a bite. What Credence says is true, of course, about him and about Graves.   
  
“We all face cruelty in life at some point, Credence. Whether it’s our parents, other family members, friends or romantic partners,” Graves says. “It’s how you use your talent of being good at reading people that matters. You went one way and I went another. You see the consequences of that now. The side of the table you sit on and what you’ll never learn about me while I sit on this side and learn everything I need to about you because you’ve lost any right to privacy.”   
  
Credence looks at Graves for a while before he shakes his head and huffs a little. “All of this because I asked if being an Auror stopped you from getting married.”   
  
“A deeply personal question.”   
  
“Not on the surface.”   
  
Graves smirks. “And yet if I answer you’ll make all sorts of assumptions about me.”   
  
Credence shrugs. “I see you making them about me when I talk about being intimate with Gellert Grindelwald. I’m sure some of them are very inaccurate.”   
  
“I’ve seen pictures of the man, it’s difficult not to make assumptions.”   
  
“It’s not always about that,” Credence says with a wry smile. “Except for someone like you, maybe.”   
  
“Making assumptions,” Graves tsks and eats more of his dinner. He takes a drink of water they’ve been refilling often throughout the day. “If I were the type to engage in passions of the flesh, my standards would certainly be higher.”   
  
“Passions of the flesh,” Credence says with amusement. “Do you read the Bible, Mister Graves?”   
  
“No. Did I accidentally quote it? Let me guess. A sin?”   
  
Credence points his fork at Graves. “Through and through, to engage in passions of the flesh,” he says. “I remember that one well because I hit puberty a few months before I ran away from home.”   
  
Graves shakes his head and can imagine the nightmare that was. “No-maj religion is poisoned,” he says. “Have you healed from it?”   
  
“I don’t fear burning in hell anymore. I don’t fear wicked thoughts anymore,” Credence says. “I don’t fear passions of the flesh either.”   
  
“Clearly,” Graves says with a chuckle. “Choose someone with scruples next time. Maybe someone whose face is vaguely more human.”   
  
Credence rolls his eyes and finishes his dinner. “Have you ever heard his voice?”   
  
“I have been fortunate enough not to.”   
  
“It’s a nice voice.”   
  
“Is that what swayed you, Credence? A nice voice?”   
  
“No, it’s what got me off. His words swayed me otherwise.”   
  
Graves waves his hand with a grimace. “I have heard more than enough when it comes to that first bit. His words are as poisonous as a no-maj religion,” he says. “Would have thought you might have picked up on that.”   
  
“Christianity - the way it was taught to me - was cruelty, Percy.”   
  
“You’re willfully ignoring the cruelty that comes with Grindelwald and what he means for our world to look like if he gets his way. There will be a lot of thirteen year old Credence Barebones who will fall to him,” Graves says firmly as he looks at Credence. “Just more poison and hate and cruelty that will lead to young boys dying or forgetting what kindness feels like.”   
  
Credence stares back and he looks shaken. His eyes are bright and his cheeks ruddy with color. “You think it’s all false kindness,” he says. It’s not a question. “That he’s only ever been using me.”   
  
Graves knows this is potentially dangerous territory. He’s made his position on this clear, he thinks, but perhaps not so bluntly.   
  
“What do you think, Credence?” he asks instead, genuinely.   
  
Credence blinks slowly, as if in a daze, and absentmindedly reaches up to rub at his eyes. “I’ve been shown false kindness before. Many times,” he says softly. “It’s never felt false.”   
  
He sounds tired again, his shoulders slumped, and there is the truth buried in his words. Whether he’ll say it now or not, Graves doesn’t know, but he does ache for Credence.   
  
“So you think he’s been genuine with you.”   
  
“That’s how it feels,” Credence says and moves his chair back so he can pull his feet onto it and wrap his arms securely around his legs. “But I’ve watched him offer that same kindness to others and hurt them after.”   
  
“What do you think he would have to gain from you by offering you false kindness?”   
  
Credence presses his head against his knee. Small, vulnerable, hurt. “My magic,” he says quietly. “And my loyalty. Enough so to let him use my magic.”   
  
Graves sighs, gently. “Things will turn around. You’ll find and do better when this is all said and done, Credence.”   
  
“That’s easy for you to say,” Credence says. “Life always moves faster when you have freedom. When you’re stuck in prison, you feel every single day of it.”   
  
Graves can’t argue with that. He lived it, once upon a time, and Credence is right. He wishes Credence had done things differently for his own sake but there’s no changing the past.   
  
“It’ll be done someday, Credence, all the same,” he says and stands. He vanishes their plates and what little they didn’t eat, leaving only their water cups and the dessert bag. “Are you ready to get some more work done?”   
  
Credence doesn’t answer, only nods, and closes his eyes.   
  
Graves doesn’t know if Credence believes what he said. If he truly believes Grindelwald was giving him false kindness or not. He was merely repeating what Graves said and offering answers to his questions and Graves would only know the truth if he asked him directly, but he won’t. It doesn’t matter right now.   
  
They pick up where they left off and Credence answers Graves’ questions and continues to tell his story, but there’s little life to him now. He’s tired, probably will be tired for a very long time, and though he tells the truth and gives useful information, it’s difficult to work with him.   
  
When he gives Credence his damn cheesecake to see if he’ll perk up more, he doesn’t. He eats it, of course, and obviously is savoring it too with his slow bites, but it seems to drive him to tears rather than breathe life back into him.   
  
Graves stops asking questions and stands in front of the chalkboard and looks down at his own notepad, checking what they’d worked through today, and decides it’s enough. They have however long it takes for Grindelwald to be stopped, but Graves thinks it’ll only take two or three more days to get the rest out of Credence.   
  
When he looks at Credence, he sees him wiping a fresh tear off his cheek. Graves sighs and walks to the table, setting his notepad down and grabbing his chair. He pulls it around near to Credence, facing him, and sits down, elbows on his knees.   
  
“Credence, look at me,” he says. Credence does so, however reluctantly. “It’s shit. All of this is shit. It was shit before you were arrested too. It’s going to be shit for a while more. You have the chance to do better after. You’re not going to leave prison an old man. You’ll have plenty of life left to live because you’re not going to be murdered when you’re let out either.”   
  
Credence stares at him and shakes his head. “You don’t know that,” he says. “Nothing you say can make me feel any better about this.” He laughs and it’s brittle. “I didn’t expect this for myself when I ran away. I might have stayed if I knew.”   
  
“You likely had a better chance of dying with your mother than you do today, now, and when you’re out.”   
  
“Maybe,” Credence says and sniffs. He pulls out the handkerchief Graves had given him and wipes his nose. “Is it true about Attermarc? That there’s no… general population, like there is in no-maj prisons?”   
  
“Yes,” Graves says. “For many reasons.”   
  
“So there won’t be anyone to talk to either,” Credence says and sighs. “It gets better and better.”   
  
Graves smiles wryly. He knows Credence doesn’t have anyone he can write to, no friends that can come and visit him, and he can understand why the thought of it haunts Credence so much. The guards will talk to him, but it’s never the same, even if a prisoner is on friendly terms with them.   
  
He can make it better for Credence. If he can convince Credence to turn against Grindelwald, to actively help take him down, to become bait if necessary, and it works, Credence’s sentence will be cut in half. Sera will approve of it and it might be easier for Credence to cope with.   
  
Graves has never faced prison. He doesn’t know how it might feel, not completely, though he’s watched countless criminals go through it, realize their life is over, realize they’ll never taste freedom again, for some of them. He can understand it and though he feels sympathy for an abused boy and an abused man, he’s not inclined to help any further than this.   
  
Protective Services would take over Credence’s placement when he gets out. Graves tells him he won’t be murdered when he gets out but it’s entirely possible he will be and for his aid, if they get it, they’ll make sure it doesn’t happen.   
  
He only has to decide the best time to make the offer. When he feels that Credence will be ready to accept it and carry through with it. He’s not there yet, but soon he might be.   
  
Graves gestures for the handkerchief and cleans it when Credence hands it to him. He gives it back and looks over Credence’s face, eyes red-rimmed but tears gone, and he doesn’t have any expectations, doesn’t have any optimism for Credence’s aid, but he hopes Credence gives it.   
  
“We’re done for tonight,” Graves says. “Finish your cheesecake.”   
  
Credence smiles faintly, wryly, and picks his fork back up for the remaining few bites. “If you faced a long prison sentence,” he says, “what would be the first thing you would want to do when getting out?”   
  
“Probably get a good slice of cheesecake.”   
  
Credence huffs a small laugh and shakes his head. “Yeah,” he says. “That might be one of my firsts too. Maybe take a walk in Central Park too. I’d say use my wand, but…”   
  
Graves shrugs. “You know how to live without magic.”   
  
“Sure,” Credence says. “The fact that I know how to live with it better makes that fact even worse. What am I supposed to do if it becomes uncontrollable and I don’t have a wand to help?”   
  
Graves sighs and gestures at Credence’s wrist.   
  
Credence’s eyebrows raise. “For the rest of my fucking life?”   
  
“To protect you and those around you.”   
  
“My magic has never hurt me.”   
  
“To protect you from another prison sentence, Credence. To protect you from lethal force if it were to get out of control around the wrong people or around an Auror.”   
  
Credence grimaces and sets the carton aside. “Will someone check on me regularly to make sure they stay on?”   
  
“MACUSA issued,” Graves says with a shrug. “They’re not coming off unless someone who is allowed to take them off does.”   
  
“Definitely wish I had stayed with my mother.”   
  
Graves smiles and pats Credence’s hand. “Come on, we’re done for the night. I’ll bring some books by tomorrow if you enjoy reading.”   
  
He pulls his hand back but Credence catches it instead and Graves eyes him warily as he holds his hand, but it’s gentle and without an intent to hurt. Credence stares down at Graves’ hand and Graves doesn’t know what he’s thinking, but he lets him.   
  
Credence’s fingers brush over Graves’, over his knuckles and across his palm. He looks to be in a daze as he does it but when he looks up at Graves, there’s something familiar in his gaze.   
  
Something dangerous in its familiarity and Graves’ stomach tightens, because he knows Credence. He knows that Grindelwald looked at Credence and saw the same thing and took advantage.   
  
Graves has no desire to be the next authority figure that Credence turns to. He has no desire to take advantage of Credence the way everyone else has taken advantage of him.   
  
But if he’d met Credence in any other way, in a healthy way, he would have easily given him what he wanted.   
  
“Credence,” he says and gently pulls his hand back. Credence lets him without a fight. “Let’s go.”   
  
When Credence puts his wrists together, Graves puts on the bond and stands up. He vanishes what’s left on the table besides his notepad and walks to the door, opening it and stepping out into the hall. Credence follows and doesn’t look at Graves, not until he opens the door to his cell and takes the bond off.   
  
“Good night, Percy,” Credence says. “Thank you for the cheesecake.”   
  
“You’re welcome,” Graves says. “Good night, Credence.”   
  
He closes and locks the door before going back into the interrogation room to get his jacket and coat. He walks upstairs and sees that Jauncey is arriving to start her shift.   
  
“Is he giving you any trouble, boss?” she asks with a smile.   
  
“About the same as they always give me.”   
  
“A headache and the need for a glass of whiskey?”   
  
Graves points at her. “See you in the morning, Captain,” he says and steps outside to Disapparate back to MACUSA.   
  
He tries not to think about Credence Barebone by the time he’s back home, another long day down in the books, but no amount of whiskey helps. No amount of whiskey keeps Credence out of his nightmares that night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **IMPORTANT**
> 
> Just in case anyone might not have read the tags in full, this is NOT a happy ending. This is Major Character Death and Life is Cruel for No Reason. Please heed the warnings and turn back now if it isn't your cup of tea. Ye be warned!

Graves and Credence work for another day and a half.  
  
There’s always going to be a heaviness to Credence, no matter how much of the burden is lifted, but he seems to have done some thinking about his situation. About what he faces. He’s on his way to accepting it so he can make it through because he will always be a survivor.  
  
They argue occasionally and laugh more and Credence is frankly a little shit sometimes, but Graves deals with it well enough because he’s a gold mine of information. They have a more solid case than they’ve had as of yet and he gives all pertinent information to Ministries overseas every day.  
  
Nothing comes in about Grindelwald until they’re halfway through another day. Credence is nearly done, nearly caught up to the day he was arrested, but he knows he’ll be staying here, rather than going to Attermarc and doesn’t seem as fearful of the interrogation ending as he might have been if they were still in MACUSA.  
  
“How do you know they were Aurors?” Graves asks as he leans back in his chair.  
  
“Because I had seen one of them before,” Credence says. “A few years before I went to Europe. I watched a couple Aurors arrest some people I knew in the apartment building I was living in at the time. He interviewed me, but I gave him the false name I was living under. Walked right by him a few weeks ago and he didn’t look at me twice.”  
  
“That hair,” Graves sighs and shakes his head. “It did make you look vastly different.”  
  
Credence runs his hand over his shorter hair. “I liked it, you know. I didn’t look like everyone else with it.”  
  
Graves thinks Credence doesn’t look like anyone else now but he keeps that to himself. “You looked like a hooligan,” he says instead and smirks when Credence rolls his eyes, but he’s laughing.  
  
There’s a knock at the door and Graves opens it and watches Fontaine walk in. He can see on his Captain’s face that he has ill news and stands up. He gestures at Credence’s wrists and though he’s not happy to do it, he holds them up and Graves binds them together. He also binds Credence to the table and Credence looks at him suspiciously but Graves turns and leaves the room, closing the door behind himself.  
  
Fontaine and Graves walk upstairs to join Barrows and they both look sober.  
  
“Hemlock didn’t come in this morning,” Fontaine says. “Didn’t come in this afternoon either.”  
  
Graves crosses his arms and sighs with all the world weariness he has. “Protocol?”  
  
“Followed,” Fontaine says with the same weariness. “Went in quietly. Shit place in the East Village. Door kicked down but no curse traps were laid. There was a struggle. A lot of blood.”  
  
Graves hums. “Enough for death?”  
  
“Nearly,” Fontaine says. “Led to the fire escape so they could Disapparate. Blood was sparse on the way from the living room to the window.”  
  
“Intentionally placed?” Graves asks. He knows the answer himself but he wants to know if Fontaine agrees.  
  
“I’d say so,” Fontaine says. “Healed before he left the living room or it wasn’t his blood.”  
  
Graves rubs his hand over his chin as he thinks about Hemlock. “Healed to keep him alive for questioning or he’s already been questioned,” he agrees. “He’s good with Occlumency but it’ll depend on who breaks in.”  
  
“And if they need to at all,” Barrows mutters. “He’s nineteen. Mouthy sometimes.”  
  
“We’re all mouthy at nineteen,” Graves says, but he agrees Hemlock’s age made him an obvious target. “Talk to the rest of his peers, both of you, Jauncey’s team too. See if anyone is evasive with you. If not, use your instincts and monitor who you need to. I won’t have this spread through my department. He’ll know by now Credence isn’t in MACUSA anymore. Get Attermarc locked down and prepared.”  
  
“And if it’s not hit?” Barrows asks.  
  
“Then we know someone there put out the information,” Graves says grimly. “He’s coming for Credence, I have no doubt about it. Six people and the guards working Attermarc know Credence isn’t there. If he doesn’t hit it, MACUSA is compromised. Get Jauncey here to stay with Credence. I need to speak with the Madam President.”  
  
Fontaine and Barrows nod and they leave, back to MACUSA. Graves walks back downstairs and opens the interrogation room door. He moves to Credence and unbinds him from the table.  
  
“We’re done for the rest of the day,” Graves says and gestures for Credence to stand. “I’ll drop by this evening.”  
  
“What’s happening?” Credence asks and looks paler than usual.  
  
“Nothing to be concerned about,” Graves says and leaves the room, waiting for Credence.  
  
“That’s a load of bullshit,” Credence says as he walks out and to his cell. Graves opens the door but he doesn’t walk inside. “Percy, what’s going on?”  
  
Graves shakes his head. “There is nothing for you to worry about. The job calls sometimes,” he says. “I told you, Credence, you’re safe here.”  
  
Credence furrows his brow. “I’m safe until he gets to New York and finds out where I am.”  
  
“That’s not going to happen,” Graves says simply. “We’ve made sure of it. You’ve told me his plans for New York. They were far bigger than you, Credence. It’s safe to assume he’s still concentrating on big plans, even if he had to change them.”  
  
“You’re underestimating him,” Credence whispers. “Like everyone else has.”  
  
Graves moves his hands to Credence’s shoulders. “I can assure you the last thing I am doing is underestimating him. I know the mistakes that have been made and I’m at a great advantage because of it. We’re going to stop him.”  
  
“He’s killed or escaped anyone who said the same thing,” Credence says and looks away. “If he’s in New York today, I feel like I’m not going to see you again.”  
  
That’s not something Graves knows how to respond to, not immediately. He gently leads Credence into the cell and gestures for him to sit on his bed, which he does, looking down at his hands. Graves moves his hand under his jaw and makes Credence look at him.  
  
“Do you want him stopped? Do you want him to not be able to hurt or kill anyone else again? Whether that’s by sending him to prison or putting him in the ground, do you want this done?”  
  
Credence gazes at him and his eyes are wet. “I don’t know which one of you is lying to me,” he says softly. “If he’s lying to me because he only wants to use my magic and doesn’t care about me at all. If you’re lying to me when you say it because you want to use me against him.”  
  
“One of us isn’t a mass murderer, Credence,” Graves says. “One of us would like you to walk out of prison one day a changed man. To do better and be better and find what you want in the way you deserve.”  
  
“But you’re still going to use me against him, if you get the chance,” Credence says and when he blinks, his tears fall.  
  
Graves moves his hand to Credence’s cheek and brushes them away. “I don’t want to use you,” he says. “I want your help because you want to give it. Because you can save lives if you do. It’s not using you, Credence, if I’m asking you to work with me. The choice is yours.”  
  
Credence closes his eyes briefly and looks up at Graves. “I don’t know. I don’t know, Percy, I don’t know what I want.”  
  
“There is no _I don’t know,_ Credence,” Graves says. “If you help us, we’ll help you. If you help us take him down, if you aid us in any way that makes it possible, I’ll give you no more than six years.”  
  
“But I don’t—”  
  
“You don’t get the luxury to think about this, Credence,” Graves says. “That’s not how this works. It’s yes or no, right here, right now. I’m not going to die today and neither are you but the world outside keeps turning and I need an answer.”  
  
Credence stares up at Graves for a while and sniffs. He furrows his brow, like he’s in pain, and nods. “Yes,” he whispers. “Yes, I’ll help.”  
  
There’s no lie in his eyes, in his voice.  
  
“I’ll be back tonight,” Graves says and brushes one more tear away. He waves his hand over Credence’s wrists, until the bond in the middle is gone, and steps back. “It’ll be alright, Credence.”  
  
“For today, maybe,” Credence says. “But soon it won’t be.”  
  
Graves frowns. “Sit tight,” he says. “Jauncey will be outside.”  
  
He leaves then and locks the door behind him. When he gets upstairs, Jauncey walks in, and he tells her to stay with Credence down below. It’s not that he thinks anyone will be able to come here, but the paranoia in him has been known to save their asses once or twice.  
  
Graves gets to MACUSA and strides through the hallways and sees that no one is rushed. No one knows. No one has heard rumors that Grindelwald is in America. Not yet.  
  
He gets to Sera’s office and when he tells her she needs to leave and go to her safehouse, per protocol, she looks angry but resigned.  
  
“Has Barebone agreed to aid us?”  
  
“He has.”  
  
“Do you believe him?”  
  
“I never believe them.”  
  
“Not even when they tell you the truth,” Sera says with a faint, tired smile.  
  
“The truth can change at any moment,” Graves agrees. “Get moving. I’ll update you as soon as I have more information.”  
  
Graves waits until Sera has been seen safely out of MACUSA by her Aurors and goes back to his department to send two seniors to join them. There is a lot of work to be done otherwise and while he doesn’t like it, Hemlock’s potential betrayal forces his hand. If there’s poison spreading through his department, he needs to stop it and cut what’s already been killed off.  
  
If the day comes that he faces Grindelwald himself, he’s going to be glad to wipe the smirk off of his face. It won’t be over even then, even with Grindelwald dead, but it’ll cripple his loyal army and they’ll fall faster than he did.  
  
Barrows and Fontaine spend the rest of the day questioning Hemlock’s peers, his friends, and Graves talks to his seniors. They don’t frame it as being suspicious of anyone but Hemlock but his seniors are smarter than that. Still, he doesn’t sense evasiveness and he gets no lies out of them.  
  
Once Barrows and Fontaine have told Graves who they plan on monitoring - two of Hemlock’s friends on Jauncey’s team - Graves approves and stays in his office for a while.  
  
He reads memos and his mail and a few files of importance, from other cases his teams are working that still need attention, and it’s getting late in the evening, past eight, before he’s comfortable with leaving.  
  
Graves goes to the safehouse and walks downstairs to relieve Jauncey of her post. Once she’s closed the door at the top of the stairs, Graves walks to Credence’s cell and opens the door.  
  
Credence is lying in bed, reading a book, and he looks up at Graves. The relief on his face is so palpable that it’s surprising. It’s genuine and Graves doesn’t know what has shifted for Credence, to be relieved that Graves is not dead when just over a week ago he knew there were plans to have him killed, but he can’t trust that it’ll last.  
  
It’ll make their work easier, Credence’s concern for his life, and Graves focuses on that as he gestures for Credence to get up.  
  
“Alive and well,” he says with a smirk when Credence walks to him. “As is everyone else.”  
  
“Are you going to tell me anything?” Credence asks and holds his wrists out. “Or am I supposed to keep imagining a million terrible scenarios of what’s happening outside?”  
  
Graves waves his hand over Credence’s wrists and leads him to the interrogation room. It’s not that he plans to continue work, but he doesn’t like talking to prisoners in their cells, not even for a short conversation. When they believe they have some sort of security where they sleep, they’re more willing to talk, he’s found.  
  
Once Graves has closed the door and removed the bond on Credence’s wrists, they sit down.  
  
“If Grindelwald is in New York, we don’t know it yet,” Graves says. “But if he’s not here, he’s in America.”  
  
Credence bites his lip and nods. He’s quiet for a while and frowns. “He was so focused on you right before I came here,” he says. “I don’t think that’s going to change, even if he knows he can’t impersonate you anymore.”  
  
“You’ve told me about both ambushes and luring people into traps. Which does he favor?”  
  
“A trap, for someone like you,” Credence says. “Someone who doesn’t put themselves in a position to be ambushed.”  
  
“I am also someone who is familiar with what a trap looks like.”  
  
“Mhmm,” Credence hums in agreement. “Which is why he makes sure he has a compelling reason to draw someone like you out.”  
  
“He won’t find that with me.”  
  
Credence shrugs. “He knows you’re close to the President. Very close.”  
  
Graves chuckles. “There’s no finding Sera,” he says. “The protocols for protecting Presidents are failsafe and always have been.”  
  
“If he can’t find her, he’ll find something or someone else,” Credence says. “That he’ll be confident will bring you to him. If he gets what’s in your head, Percy, he’ll be at an advantage over all of America. And he’ll kill you after.”  
  
“Which would solidify hatred in some and support in others,” Graves says with a grim smile. “He’s not going to kill me, Credence. I’m not going to be lured into a trap.”  
  
Credence doesn’t look like he believes Graves, but that’s fair, considering what he’s seen. He’s never seen Graves, though, and he hasn’t come this far in life, survived what he has and accomplished what he has, to let Gellert Grindelwald ruin it all.  
  
“Then prepare for an ambush,” Credence says. “What would happen to me if MACUSA was… I don’t know, compromised? What would happen to me if you died?”  
  
“The President knows what I’ve offered you,” Graves says. “That’ll be honored, if your help brings him down, whether I’m here or not.”  
  
Credence’s eyes dart away and he nods. “I’d like to believe it’ll go the way you think it will,” he says. “I’d like to believe the world might be safer one day soon. But I’ve seen what he’s capable of. I know him, as much as he let me know him.”  
  
“He does have a certain tenacity,” Graves says with a dry chuckle. “When it’s all said and done, you might find some confidence in MACUSA and I.”  
  
“When I start getting confident in anything, it all goes wrong,” Credence says with a long sigh. “Whether it’s in myself or someone else. If I start believing you’ll win this, you’ll lose.”  
  
“That’s a shitty superstition.”  
  
“It’s been my entire life.”  
  
“I’ve only been involved in your life for a short time. You’re still confident in Grindelwald.”  
  
“I’d say I only believe in consistency when it comes to him.”  
  
Graves smirks and shrugs, putting his hands behind his head. “Start believing in my consistency,” he says. “I’ve put away every mass murderer in America in the last seven years. Helped with all the ones before that for another thirteen.”  
  
“Not of his caliber,” Credence says flatly.  
  
“My next biggest challenge then. I do like challenges.”  
  
Credence sighs and frowns for a while as he looks down at the table. “I feel like when I look at you I’m looking at a dead man walking.”  
  
“Thank you for _that_ vote of confidence.”  
  
“I’m serious,” Credence says and sniffs. “Every person I’ve liked in my life has hurt me in some way.”  
  
Graves furrows his brow. “I’m not going to hurt you, Credence. I’m doing what I can to protect and help you, as long as I get that in return. There’s no getting out of prison time.”  
  
“That’s not what I mean,” Credence says and looks at Graves. “It’s going to hurt if you fall into his hands and die.”  
  
Graves stares at Credence for a while before he sighs, gently. “I can only keep telling you that’s not going to happen,” he says. “I’m not someone to form an attachment to, Credence. Save yourself some pain by realizing that so the day I cast my guilty vote it won’t hurt you.”  
  
“If that day comes, that won’t hurt me,” Credence says. “Because you’ll be alive.”  
  
“Believe in that then. Save yourself some worry too,” Graves says. Credence looks away and Graves shakes his head. “I’ll come by in the morning, if I can. Talk to Fontaine, Barrows and Jauncey when they bring you in here, for the days I have to stay in MACUSA. Helping us includes all of us.”  
  
“I know that,” Credence says dryly. “I’ll do my best. I don’t know if anything I’ll have to say will help bring him down, but I’ll try, Percy.”  
  
“You know more than you realize at the moment,” Graves says and stands. “I told you it’s amazing what people can do with seemingly inconsequential information. That includes an Auror department.”  
  
“I hope the American Auror department is better than the Austrian, German, Russian and British ones,” Credence says and looks up at Graves when he steps next to him. He holds out his hands. “Or else one day someone is going to walk in here and tell me what I fear happened.”  
  
Graves shakes his head as he puts on the bond between Credence’s wrists. “I’m just going to have to survive to spite your lack of confidence in me at this point,” he says. “Or would dying spite you more?”  
  
“Don’t say that,” Credence mutters as he stands. “Don’t let him pull you into a trap, Percy, no matter what it is.”  
  
“There’s nothing in this world that would drive me straight into his hands, Credence,” Graves says and squeezes Credence’s shoulder. “He won’t have leverage over me one day because there’s none to be found.”  
  
Credence frowns obstinately. “There’s always leverage to be found,” he says. “That’s why the last couple of years have gone so well for him. He’s good with ambushes too.”  
  
“He’s gotten lucky,” Graves says. “His luck will run out eventually. It always does for people like him.”  
  
The way Credence looks at him tells Graves he thinks _his_ luck will run out too and he sighs, resting his hand over Credence’s cheek. There’s very little luck involved in his work and Credence knows that, so he doesn’t remind him.  
  
“Stop worrying so much,” Graves says quietly. “Have a little faith in me and you might sleep better.”  
  
Credence closes his eyes and nods, turning his cheek more against Graves’ hand. Seeking out comfort and a gentle touch and Graves should stop giving it to him, because it puts them both in a bad position. In danger. But he does care for Credence’s well being in some way, he knows he does, because he’s never put his hands on a criminal unless he’s in the process of arresting them.  
  
But he also knows that Credence is merely turning to him because he’s yet another authority figure in his life, his comfort zone, no matter how much it’s hurt him. He doesn’t want to take advantage of him the way everyone else has.  
  
It’s hard to remember that when Credence looks at him and the plea in his eyes, the burning heat, sends Graves’ thoughts on a wildly different path. He pulls his hand away but Credence catches it in both of his, not tightly, not with any intent to do harm.  
  
“Percy,” Credence whispers. “Please.”  
  
Graves stares at him and shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I’m not taking advantage of you the way he did. I’m not him, Credence.”  
  
“I know that perfectly well, Percy,” Credence says. “I didn’t ask him for it. I’m asking you. You wouldn’t be taking advantage of me.”  
  
Graves laughs humorlessly. “We do not have an equal relationship here, Credence. You’re my prisoner. Of course it would be.”  
  
“Percy,” Credence says. “I’m choosing someone with scruples. I think if I don’t feel you and one day I never see you again, I’ll regret it until the day he finds me.”  
  
“And I would regret it every day after this one for the long life I plan on living,” Graves says, but he feels like he’s losing control of this conversation. It shouldn’t be happening to begin with but he wants to give Credence what he’s asking for and that’s a frightening thought. “Please don’t put me in this position.”  
  
Credence blinks once, then twice, and the heat is gone. He lets go of Graves’ hand and looks away. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly and his brow furrows, like he’s in pain again. “I’m sorry, Percy. I won’t.”  
  
Graves closes his eyes briefly and takes in a breath to clear his head. “Come on,” he says. “It’s getting late. Try to get some sleep.”  
  
Credence nods and follows Graves out of the interrogation room and into his cell. Once the bond is off, he walks to his bed and sits down on the edge of it and everything in Graves is screaming at him to comfort him. To tell him it’ll be okay, that nothing bad is going to happen to either of them, but Credence won’t believe it and it’ll dig him into a hole he might not get out of.  
  
He wishes Credence a good night instead and closes the door, locking it. He rubs his hands over his face and looks up at the ceiling before he leaves the basement.  
  
Merlin help him.  
  
——  
  
Graves will blame his lack of sleep through the night for the blood spilled later.  
  
He’s at work at six in the morning and it’s only just beginning to brighten outside a half hour later when Barrows bursts into his office and tells him someone blasted _The Blind Pig_ apart.  
  
Graves knows who’s behind it, they all do, though Graves doubts it was done personally. An official welcome party for him, Graves thinks, to destroy the place that gives them the most trouble, because someone else has arrived to take that coveted position.  
  
Or maybe Gnarlak didn’t like the new wizards in town and spoke to them the way he usually speaks to anyone and found himself blasted apart for it.  
  
They don’t go in wands blazing like they normally might, but get vantage points from across the city first. No-majs have gathered around, stopping on their way to work to see the damage, and eventually the police come. They observe them for a while, out of necessity, and Graves sends his team in slowly. Once he’s been given the all clear, they take over the investigation from the local police and question no-majs who were close when it happened.  
  
Numerous people are dead inside, most likely the street criminals who helped Gnarlak run his operation and the goblin himself, and the mess starts Graves’ daily headache early. He lets his team deal with it once he’s had his look and he’s barely stepped back into MACUSA before he’s alerted to a wand fight at the docks.  
  
He’s inclined to think these are traps, would have without Credence’s insistence about it, but when they’ve actively got wizards fighting each other in public, there’s not much he can do beyond respond with the utmost precaution.  
  
It’s not a trap, Graves can tell, when he gets there and observes it from a distance. It’s a distraction and he will find out for what when this is finished or he will find out in time. Knowing Grindelwald, it’s likely the latter, so Graves steps in with his Aurors to put an end to it.  
  
He’s angry, his head hurts, and getting Credence Barebone out of his mind is difficult. But it’s the lack of any restful sleep that makes his response time not as quick as usual. He misses the curse but it blasts apart a metal container next to him and he feels the slice to his cheek and the warm blood that leaves it and sees red.  
  
It’s over a moment later, some dead, others incapacitated, others in the process of being arrested.  
  
“One day,” Fontaine says conversationally as he heals Graves’ wound because it’s continually seeping blood, “you’re going to get so angry that they’ll combust on the spot and we’ll call it a good day.”  
  
Graves laughs. “That day feels like it might be around the corner,” he says and grabs his handkerchief out of his pocket once Fontaine is done and wipes at the blood. “Clean this up before the entire city collapses.”  
  
“Can’t wait to blast this fucker into pieces,” Fontaine mutters darkly.  
  
Graves thoroughly agrees with that and he leaves the docks to go back to MACUSA. There’s no more news yet, not another attack or distraction, no unusual movements throughout the city. Something is happening and Graves’ department will figure it out but it means Grindelwald is here.  
  
He updates Sera on the shitshow of the early morning and stays in MACUSA for the rest of the day otherwise. Nothing else happens, nothing they hear of, no more fireworks, and once Graves has eaten dinner in his office, he’s comfortable with leaving it for a while.  
  
He did tell Credence he would see him in the morning, if he could, before that plan was blasted apart, and he likely shouldn’t even go tonight, but he feels compelled to let Credence know he hasn’t been killed yet.  
  
Graves gets to the safehouse and tells Barrows to go upstairs and wait for any news that might come. He waits until the door is closed before moving to Credence’s cell, taking off his suit jacket, and unlocking the door. He opens it and looks inside at Credence.  
  
Credence is sitting in the corner of his bed, leaned against the wall in anything but comfort, holding a book against his knees. He looks up at Graves and the relief is there again, but there’s hurt too, and then something like terror.  
  
“You’re hurt,” Credence says and tosses his book aside, sliding off of his bed and walking to Graves. “What happened?”  
  
Graves raises his eyebrows and looks down at his collar, where Credence is looking. He’d cleaned off all the blood, but it seems he missed a nice long strip of it just under his collar that was hidden by his jacket. He sighs and shakes his head.  
  
“Misbehaving wizards,” Graves says. “My cheek was the unfortunate victim of a non-life threatening injury. I’m perfectly fine.”  
  
Credence looks shaken. “It’s him,” he says quietly and looks at Graves. “Please don’t lie to me. It was him.”  
  
“It wasn’t him, Credence,” Graves says. “Not the one who aimed the curse anyway. But yes, I do believe he has something to do with it.”  
  
“He’s in New York then,” Credence says and his eyes are bright. “Why’d you go?”  
  
“It’s my job,” Graves sighs. “I’m not going to cower in my office because something _might_ be a trap. _Might_ be an ambush. Every single time I leave my office for field work can be either of those. Just one of the risks.”  
  
“Percy,” Credence says. “This isn’t the same and you know it.”  
  
“Let me worry about how to do my job, Credence,” Graves says firmly. “Come on, let’s talk in the other room.”  
  
Credence sighs and nods. When he holds out his wrists, Graves merely gestures for him to go on and Credence frowns, but does so. They walk into the interrogation room and Graves closes the door behind himself.  
  
He watches Credence as he looks around the room, at the chalkboard and table and chairs. He runs his hand along the metal table and looks at Graves. He looks like he didn’t get much sleep either.  
  
“I thought Mister Barrows might have been lying to me when I asked if everything was alright,” Credence says. “He said everything was fine, that you were just busy.”  
  
“I was,” Graves says and moves to the table, leaning against it and crossing his arms over his chest. “I imagine there will be very little time for being anything but busy.”  
  
Credence smiles faintly and nods. “Who knows,” he says lightly, “it might be the stress that kills both of us before Grindelwald does.”  
  
Graves chuckles. “You know,” he sighs, “you might be right about that, Mister Barebone.”  
  
When Credence reaches for Graves’ collar, his movements not rushed, Graves hardly has the thought to stop him. It makes him angry that he’s not as suspicious of Credence as he should be, but Credence only touches the dried blood and frowns. His fingers on Graves’ cheek is what frightens him more.  
  
“I wish my magic healed me. When I was a kid and it was so out of control,” he says quietly. “I wish it didn’t leave me marked the way I am. It might have helped me sometimes, not letting my mother take the belt to me some nights, but it never healed me.”  
  
“You weren’t allowed to experience the kinder side of your magic because of her, Credence. The gentleness it has,” Graves says. “I wish you could have. That when you scraped your knees, you could’ve watched your skin heal.”  
  
Credence smiles gently. “I think that was the most disappointing thing about the wizarding world for me,” he says. “Not just that it didn’t heal me but that I couldn’t get rid of the scars afterward.”  
  
“I’m sure they’re painful to look at,” Graves says. “Bad memories.”  
  
“They were for a long time,” Credence says. “It was worse for a while, when I got older. I was scared to take my shirt off in front of anyone. Some people gave me reason to be scared,” he adds dryly. “But I got over that too eventually.”  
  
Graves darkly wonders if Grindelwald had anything to do with that. Probably told Credence he was beautiful covered in scars given to him by a monster of his own ilk. And maybe he did think Credence was beautiful, his scars were beautiful, but not for any sane or healthy reason, Graves is sure.  
  
He’s annoyed with himself for these thoughts and sighs, moving his hand up and taking Credence’s, so he isn’t touching his face anymore, but he finds he can’t let go anyway.  
  
“It’s good you’ve found some healing, Credence,” Graves says. “You’re a resilient person.”  
  
“Going to prison eventually,” Credence says with some amusement, smiling.  
  
“Hey, you’re smiling about it. What can be more resilient than that?”  
  
Credence huffs and shakes his head, but he’s still smiling. He squeezes Graves’ hand. “It helps, you know.”  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
“Real kindness.”  
  
Graves watches Credence, looks over his smile, gentle and tinged with sadness, but genuine. His eyes, soft with trust and the care he has for Graves, no matter how little he knows him.  
  
Credence isn’t a child, but he didn’t grow up properly either, and Graves can’t think of it in any other way. That Credence doesn’t have a healthy grasp of what _healthy_ looks like. What he wants from Graves, what he feels for him, is far from normal but Graves looks at his smile and wants to give him it.  
  
He’s never felt this way before. Anyone he dated when he was younger was appropriate to date, in the wizarding world anyway, and he’s never felt an ounce of affection for someone he’s arrested. Pity and sympathy, yes, but not an affection that makes him want to give in, give Credence what he seeks, so he might find some comfort in it.  
  
It’s wildly unhealthy and inappropriate and could lose him his job. And if he gave in, he’d still be taking advantage of the situation. Of Credence.  
  
Graves is better than that. A man of scruples. That’s who he’s been most of his life and yet when he looks at Credence, he finds he doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a damn about scruples or the lack of ethical and moral standing he usually carries so proudly.  
  
When he looks into Credence’s eyes again, the softness and affection is there, but lessened to make room for the searing heat of yesterday. He sees it on Graves and there’s a thrill to it that wasn’t there before, something that makes Graves’ heart race and blood burn.  
  
Credence doesn’t beg and he doesn’t move closer, only continues to hold Graves’ hand, because he wants Graves to make that choice.  
  
Graves stands straight and for a moment Credence looks like he expects a rejection but Graves moves his hands to his waist. Credence stares at him, his lips parted, and follows easily when Graves pushes him back against the table. His hands move to Graves’ waistcoat, holding gently onto it.  
  
“Tell me,” Graves says quietly. “Tell me what you want me to give you, Credence, and I will.”  
  
Credence’s eyes are dark and the sigh he lets out is uneven. “Only if you want to, Percy,” he says. “Please, not just because I do.”  
  
Graves moves closer and slides his hands down to Credence’s ass, lifting him a little, so he’s sitting on the edge of the table, and Credence’s small gasp of surprise makes his blood burn more.  
  
“I want to,” Graves says. “Merlin help us both, I want to.”  
  
There’s color on Credence’s cheek from arousal and his eyelids are heavy as he slides his hands along Graves’ chest and up to his shoulders.  
  
“I want to feel you,” Credence says and wets his lips. “Inside of me.”  
  
Graves wasn’t expecting any other answer to come from him and nods. Credence’s eyes dart down to his lips but that’s one thing Graves can’t do right now. He can’t kiss Credence because that’s intimacy to him and he knows it’s bullshit, utter bullshit, but he doesn’t want to share something that feels like more than sex.  
  
“Lay back,” Graves says roughly instead. “Hold onto the other end of the table.”  
  
Credence whimpers, just slightly, and does as Graves says, laying back on the table. He reaches up behind his head and holds onto the edge of the table and seeing him, just like that, has Graves harder faster than he thinks he’s been in all his life.  
  
“Fuck,” he whispers and moves his hand to Credence’s stomach, pushing up his shirt, until he can look at his heaving abdomen. He’s skinny but there’s a strength to him too and Graves runs his hand along his smooth skin, down to his hip.  
  
Credence’s legs are wrapped loosely around Graves’ waist and his eyes flutter shut as Graves touches him. “Please, Percy,” he says and looks up at Graves. “I need you in me.”  
  
“I will be, Credence,” Graves says and moves his hands to Credence’s trousers. They’re soft, prison issued with no belt, and Graves pulls them down when Credence lifts his ass. He kicks his shoes off too and they let the trousers fall to the floor.  
  
His cock is straining in the thin underwear he’s been given and Graves likes the size of him already. He pulls his underwear off with no fanfare and looks at Credence’s cock, long and hard and leaking already.  
  
“Beautiful. You’re beautiful, Credence,” Graves says. “I want to hear you when I’m in you.”  
  
He looks up at the door and holds his hand up toward it, until he’s sure no one else is getting in unless he lets them in, and that any noises in this room can’t be heard outside.  
  
Credence groans as Graves slides his hands along his thighs and hips. He gasps when Graves pulls him down, just enough so his ass is right where Graves wants it, slightly over the edge. “Fuck,” he hisses. “I want to see your cock.”  
  
Graves chuckles and pulls out his wand instead. He flicks it and the lubricant that comes out of it is possibly his least favorite, but it’ll do. He puts his wand way and moves his fingers to Credence’s hole, which looks perfectly fuckable like this, and spreads the lube. Credence hisses at the coolness of it but he nods quickly anyway and Graves pushes a finger into him.  
  
“Two,” Credence pleads and moans. “Two, please, you’re not going to hurt me.”  
  
That makes Graves’ cock strain all the more and he pushes two fingers into Credence. He grips Credence’s thigh as he thrusts them into him, testing his resistance and finding very little, and it does make Credence moan so beautifully, his back arching off the table.  
  
Graves finds he needs to be inside of Credence, the same desperate need Credence feels and once he’s sure Credence can take three fingers, he pulls them out. He flicks his hand until it’s clean and dry and unbuckles his belt and opens his trousers.  
  
“Yes,” Credence says. He sits up, just a little, on his elbows, his legs wrapped around Graves’ waist not letting him slip forward. He watches Graves pull his cock out and he watches him slick himself up and Graves thinks the look on Credence’s face alone could do him in. “You’re perfect, Percy. Fuck me, please.”  
  
“Lay back down,” Graves says and watches Credence do so, reaching up to grab the edge of the table again. Laid out the way he is will be burned into Graves’ mind forever and it’s probably a good thing he’s not completely bare.  
  
Graves presses himself against Credence and after Credence has moaned _yes,_ he pushes inside of him. They both groan as he sinks in and Credence’s legs are tight around his waist, pulling him as close as he can. Graves moves his hands under Credence’s knees until he loosens his grip and lifts his legs, and Credence gets the idea and puts them over Graves’ shoulders, with a little help.  
  
“Fuck yes,” Credence whines. “Percy, please, fuck me, fuck me and make me feel it.”  
  
They are well past the point of no return and Graves doesn’t care.  
  
He fucks Credence, his hands pressed on the table near his hips, with hard, quick thrusts and groans at the feeling of Credence around him.  
  
Credence’s cries are loud, his moans desperate, his shouts of Graves’ name beautiful, and he holds onto the table because this is rough and fast. His thighs shake with each thrust into him and his cock bounces between his legs, a perfect sight.  
  
“Yes, oh, _oh,_ fuck yes, Percy,” Credence moans. He cries out when Graves shifts his legs and fucks him at a different angle. “I want to come, fuck, I’m already there.”  
  
“Not yet,” Graves hisses. The harsh sound of skin against skin is loud in here, on top of the noises Credence is making, surrounded by four concrete walls. “You feel so fucking good, sweetheart. Is this what you wanted?”  
  
_“Yes,”_ Credence gasps. “From the moment you brought me here, I wanted this. Fuck!” he cries and tilts his head back, sweat on his forehead, a bead of it rolling down his temple. “I’ve been thinking about your come in me for days.”  
  
Graves groans and feels his orgasm swiftly approaching with those words. “I’m going to come inside of you then, Credence,” he says, broken between breaths. He’s sweating too, hot and uncomfortable in his suit, but it makes it better.  
  
There’s a sweetness to Credence even during this, even when he begs for Graves to fill him, a genuineness in the way he looks at Graves, focusing on him and only him.  
  
It hits Graves, hard and suddenly, when he looks into Credence’s eyes and sees the affection there, and he grunts as he buries himself in Credence and comes. He moans, low, as Credence gasps, as his hole clenches down around Graves.  
  
“Jerk off,” Graves says once he’s found his voice, “I want to feel you come around me.”  
  
Credence moves his hand to his cock and he strokes himself, quick and eager, and he moans when Graves rocks his hips, his other hand moving down to the edge of the table. He looks up at Graves and Credence must be too similar to him, because he comes then, with a loud, wrung out cry.  
  
Come falls onto his stomach with each squeeze around Graves’ cock and he groans as he watches Credence’s face, at his furrowed brow, his mouth open, at the sweat that shines in the bright light of the room.  
  
He’s gorgeous.  
  
And he’s trouble.  
  
Credence finishes with a gasp and sags against the table, breathing deeply, and Graves watches him, pressing his cheek against Credence’s leg.  
  
They stare at each other as they catch their breath and as the high begins to come down, as the arousal begins to fade, Graves feels what he didn’t care about creeping up on him.  
  
That he’s fucked up here, that he’s crossed a line never meant to be crossed, but it’s not himself he’s worried about. He looks at Credence and feels shame boil in his gut, because he knows this will hurt him.  
  
It’ll hurt them both, but Graves can handle it. He doesn’t think Credence can.  
  
“Percy,” Credence whispers and there’s concern in his gaze now. “Percy, please don’t leave.”  
  
Graves grits his teeth and slides his hands down Credence’s legs, squeezing his thighs. “We can’t do this again,” he says and looks away when Credence flinches.  
  
He pulls gently out of him and with a quick wave of his hand his come is gone. He vanishes Credence’s come too and helps him sit up on the edge of the table before he pulls away. Graves gets dressed quickly, his hands steady as they always are, but his heart is beating frantically and he feels ill.  
  
“Percy,” Credence says. “Percy, please look at me.”  
  
Graves does, though he doesn’t want to, and sees that Credence is hurt already. “We can’t, Credence,” he says hoarsely. “This is dangerous. I shouldn’t… it’s selfish of me to do this to you.”  
  
“I asked for it,” Credence says and there’s anger in his words too. “I want you. It’s not selfish if we both want it. And you didn’t make me do anything I didn’t fucking want to, so don’t start thinking it. I know what I want.”  
  
“This isn’t good for either of us,” Graves says. “I want you too, Credence, but I can’t do this to you. I can’t do this to me either. It’s going to end in a world of hurt and you know that. Get dressed.”  
  
He moves away and runs his hands through his damp hair and doesn’t know what it is about Credence Barebone.  
  
Because there’s something about him, something that’s stuck, something that Graves can’t shake, and he’s not foolish enough to think it’s anything deeper than infatuation, but it’s nothing he’s ever felt before.  
  
“Percy,” Credence says and when Graves looks at him, he’s dressed. “I’m not going to regret it, even if you do. I see the way you look at me. It’s not just a fuck to you just like it’s not to me.”  
  
“Not only are you going to fucking _prison,”_ Graves says angrily, “but you are absolutely certain I’m going to fucking die at any moment. This is going to hurt us, Credence, it doesn’t matter what we feel. I need to focus on hunting this man down, not on what I feel for you. You’re safe here and that’s all that matters.”  
  
He walks to the door and opens it, stepping out into the basement and waits for Credence. Credence storms by him and to his cell and when Graves opens the door, he walks inside and closes it himself. Graves sighs and locks it before he moves to a desk and sinks down onto the chair there.  
  
He puts his head in his hands and he doesn’t often think of himself as a colossal fucking moron, but he does tonight.  
  
They need separation. He can’t come back here tomorrow because he doesn’t trust himself. He needs to get back on moral ground and when he is, he’ll see Credence again, and it will only be to get his help for the case.  
  
That’s all it should have been to begin with and Graves is going to have to think about this now, for the rest of his career, and can only hope he never fucks up again.  
  
——  
  
There’s hardly any time to breathe, let alone think, for the next three days. It does give Graves a reprieve from the shitshow his personal life has taken on top of his professional one, because he is simply too fucking busy cleaning up after Grindelwald’s loyal followers and trying to track down the man himself to think of anything else.  
  
A few more people are murdered but it’s not with the bang of the first day. It’s taunting, the way it’s done, murder for sport, which Grindelwald doesn’t typically engage in. He’s too clean, too precise in what he plans to do, and while it may lose him some followers, it’ll gain him others.  
  
Nothing comes from the destruction of _The Blind Pig_ or the fight at the docks.  
  
It’s punishment for taking Credence away from him. His prized weapon.  
  
But Graves didn’t earn his position for nothing and he puts heat on Grindelwald’s followers, until they’re driven back into hiding. He even manages to get two more in prison.  
  
Informants have disappeared for the most part and if they’re found, they don’t have any information about anything, naturally, and it’s not a surprise. Graves spends his time on the floor of the department and mapping out movements, predicting where and when, which is where his skills lie the most, outside of wandwork.  
  
He’s never gone up against someone like Grindelwald before, but he doesn’t look at Grindelwald as abnormal. He looks at him like he’s any other piece of shit who finds his joy in Dark Arts and murder and by the third day Grindelwald has been in New York, they have one from his inner circle in their custody.  
  
Graves knows all about him, courtesy of Credence, and though he’s been thoroughly trained in Occlumency, enough to rival Graves’ top Aurors, he breaks in and sifts through memories. Confirming things that Credence has said, confirming the current whereabouts of Grindelwald’s most loyal.  
  
He signs off on a raid, effective immediately, and sends his best to carry it out while he continues the interrogation.  
  
By one in the morning, the cells are full, but not with any more of Grindelwald’s inner circle. They’re still people who know things, who aid in the massive case that’s being built, and Graves is proud of his department. They’re accomplishing a lot in a very short period of time because they’ve all learned from the mistakes overseas.  
  
His Captains are still keeping a close eye on Hemlock’s peers, but there’s been no suspicious activity and they don’t lie when asked more about him.  
  
They’ve heard nothing of Hemlock since the day he was taken from his apartment. He’s either lying dead somewhere or he’s in with Grindelwald’s fold and Graves knows where his instincts are with Hemlock. The investigation as he knew it was compromised but he was still unaware of the most pressing parts of it.  
  
Attermarc prison is hit. It’s a relief to hear, for a moment, because Graves thinks that MACUSA is not likely compromised. But the report he gets, two security guards dead, four prisoners escaped, minimal damage to the building, and how quickly it was swept through, not enough time for Aurors to even respond according to the guards there, makes him think otherwise.  
  
It’s not enough. It’s not Grindelwald’s work either though he was reported to be there by three separate security guards and a handful of prisoners.  
  
An appearance but he wasn’t the one to raise his wand and inflict harm. His followers did it for him and it’s not enough for Graves to think this is anything but another distraction.  
  
That Grindelwald knew Credence wasn’t going to be found there but he wants Graves to think he did. To think MACUSA is safe.  
  
That’s still too easy.  
  
Grindelwald would have made it convincing. He wants Graves to know he knew Credence wasn’t there and he wants Graves to know he knows it because MACUSA _is_ compromised.  
  
The security guards who work in Attermarc occasionally are in the building, to take convicted criminals to the prison or to bring them in for trials or more questioning. They have access to anyone and everyone barring Seraphina and the Auror department.  
  
It’s impossible to know how deeply it goes. One security guard or several, how much information they could possibly have given Grindelwald. They don’t know anything of importance, beyond the fact that Credence wasn’t in prison, but they know the people who do.  
  
Graves sequesters his department and has all family members and any close friends go to the various safehouses around the country that are designed for this. No one ever thinks it’s going to be necessary, but no one expects a man like Grindelwald to walk into New York.  
  
Beyond that, he lets MACUSA operate on business as usual to prevent a panic. To prevent Grindelwald and his followers feeling emboldened if he locked the building down, to make them think they’re afraid.  
  
By the fourth morning, New York is quiet again.  
  
Graves doesn’t trust this type of quiet. The quiet before the storm. Sitting in the eye of it, even, and he expects things to go to shit soon.  
  
But they’re prepared for this and they’ve done good work. Credence continues to offer help, speaking with Fontaine and Barrows and Jauncey every day, and they have prevented two attacks because of his knowledge of how Grindelwald operates.  
  
Graves has time to see him now and he debates not going. But it’s been over three days since he left Credence, since he left him in the way he did, and guilt is gnawing at him about that as much as it is about the fact that he got too close.  
  
But it’s still quiet in the city after lunch, so Graves goes.  
  
He relieves Fontaine of duty and walks down into the basement. He unlocks and opens the thick cell door and looks inside at Credence.  
  
Credence is sitting at the small desk, scribbling something on a piece of paper, and he turns and looks at Graves. He freezes, staring at Graves like he might be staring at a ghost, and Graves could sigh and thank Credence for his continued confidence in him, but then the hurt takes over.  
  
The abandonment, the rejection, and Credence turns away.  
  
It hurts him too, squarely in the middle of his chest, and Graves closes his eyes and rubs his hand over his face.  
  
“Credence,” he says quietly and looks at him. Credence’s shoulders are arched up and he’s scribbling more feverishly and Graves sighs. “You’re not even slightly glad to see me alive anymore?”  
  
That gets him boiling, Graves can see, as Credence slams his pen down and stands up, turning to glare at Graves. “Fuck you,” he snaps. “No one’s telling me _anything,_ just— just that he’s here and you’re dealing with it and _it’s not my concern_ and— Percy—”  
  
Graves walks to Credence, so beautiful in his anger and despair, and Credence backs into the desk until Graves takes his cheeks in his hands and kisses him.  
  
Credence doesn’t seem to know if he wants to continue ranting or if he wants to be kissed, but the latter wins out. He kisses Graves with as much force and passion as Graves kisses him and he wraps his arms around his shoulders, clutching at him.  
  
They stay like that until they need to breathe and Graves doesn’t pull away, only presses his forehead to Credence’s and holds him tight.  
  
“If you’re going to regret this and leave,” Credence finally says, his voice trembling, “then don’t do that again.”  
  
“I’m not leaving, Credence,” Graves says quietly and slides his hands up and down Credence’s back, until he steadily relaxes in his arms. He knows it’s true, no matter what he’d been thinking before. “I’m sorry that I did.”  
  
Credence sniffs and digs his fingers into Graves’ coat. “It’s been terrible, you know. I know they’d tell me if something bad happened, but it’s been terrible to not see you so I can know for myself,” he says. “I get to sit here all day and imagine the ways he’s keeping you busy.”  
  
“I’ve barely had time to do anything but work, Credence,” Graves says. “I can’t remember what food other than toast tastes like.” He smiles when he pulls back and looks at Credence. “But I’m sorry I didn’t make time to come here.”  
  
“Has he really been so active in New York?”  
  
Graves sighs. “His followers, mostly, have been causing trouble. Got a dozen of them in the cells in MACUSA, along with Boucher,” he says. “Spent a day interrogating him.”  
  
Credence raises his eyebrows and looks surprised. “Really?” he asks and nods. “That’s good. I’m sure he was angry to find himself sitting across from you.”  
  
“Terribly,” Graves says and smirks. “But I got what I needed out of him. You’ve been helping too. We’re winning this, for now.”  
  
“For now.”  
  
“I expect Grindelwald to make his move soon and I don’t expect it to be a small one. I’ve had to take certain precautions that I’ve never had to in my career. Blood is going to be spilled, tomorrow, next week, soon, but I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure it’s his.”  
  
Credence gazes at Graves, still holding tightly onto him. “Okay,” he says quietly. “If you’ve got Boucher in custody, you’re already doing better than they did in Europe.”  
  
“You noticed that too, huh?” Graves asks with a smirk and chuckles when Credence tugs at his coat. “What’d I tell you?”  
  
“To have a little faith in you,” Credence says and smiles. “I do, you know.”  
  
“I don’t know, I think you’ve told me I’m going to die at least a dozen times.”  
  
Credence laughs. “Well,” he says and shrugs. “I didn’t realize you were actually competent at your job.”  
  
Graves laughs too. “You’re the person I’m turning to if I ever need a pep talk,” he says. “You’re very good at them.”  
  
Credence grins and moves his hand to Graves’ cheek. “I just want it to be done,” he says softly and leans in, kissing Graves, but it’s too hesitant.  
  
Graves kisses him back firmly, pulling him closer, and presses a softer kiss to his lips after. “Before you know it,” Graves sighs. “It’ll be done.”  
  
“Do you have to go back to work?” Credence asks. “Can you stay for a little while?”  
  
“Havoc has yet to be wreaked today,” Graves says dryly. “So I can stay. Let Fontaine sit at his desk for a while with his team.”  
  
“Mister Fontaine isn’t here anymore?”  
  
“Get your head out of the gutter, Mister Barebone,” Graves sighs and pulls away, keeping hold of Credence’s hand. “If someone comes to retrieve me, it’s best if I’m not found in here with you.”  
  
“Fraternizing with the enemy,” Credence agrees with amusement. “I hate the other room, but I suppose I can understand that.”  
  
Graves shakes his head and leads Credence out of his room and into the interrogation room. He tries not to look at the table and think about a few nights ago as he takes his coat off and hangs it on the back of the chair.  
  
Credence doesn’t help matters when he sits on the table instead of in the beautifully made armchair Graves has so graciously transfigured for him. Graves pointedly sits down in his own and looks up at Credence. But he can’t resist reaching up and sliding his hand under Credence’s shirt, feeling his warm skin and rubbing his hip.  
  
Credence smiles softly and lays his hand over Graves’ arm. “Will you tell me what’s been happening?”  
  
“I can tell you I’ve had to take numerous potions the last few days for headaches,” Graves says and smiles when Credence frowns. “I can’t tell you much, Credence. It’s not because I don’t trust you. Grindelwald knows you’re not in prison so he’ll be looking for you.”  
  
“He’ll find me, if that’s his goal,” Credence says. “Unless you find him first.”  
  
“He won’t find you, Credence,” Graves says and moves his hand to Credence’s thigh, squeezing it. “I need you to believe me when I say you’re safe here.”  
  
“I believe you think I am,” Credence mumbles. “I don’t believe it’s actually true.”  
  
Graves sighs and supposes they’ll always be at an impasse on some things. “I’ll have to prove it to you then,” he says with a tired smile. “That last attack in Germany. How did he prepare for it?”  
  
Credence frowns, with concern and concentration both. “It had been building up to it for a couple weeks,” he says. “We were always moving around. Interrogating and recruiting. I stayed in place when there were battles. But he barely sleeps, you know. He’d come back from a small war and plan for six hours about how the attack was going to go. He only tells his closest what he’s going to do. They only give the most necessary information to the people below them and so on. The seventeen year olds who think they agree with his message are always promised rewards for fighting on the front lines for him and don’t know why they’re really doing it.”  
  
Graves knows as much, the amount of young lives lost all because Grindelwald charmed them one night, and nods. “His pawns aren’t aware of his grand schemes then,” he says. “Boucher wasn’t privy to a large scale attack either.”  
  
“You said it’s gone quiet today?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Then you caught Boucher before he started planning. America is unfamiliar ground to him, so it doesn’t surprise me if he’s going to keep quiet until he finishes his plans.”  
  
“Large scale attack?”  
  
Credence shakes his head. “No,” he says softly. “That’s not until later. His army isn’t big enough. Maybe once he’s worked his way through America it might be.” He bites his lip. “He’s coming for me, Percy. He’ll only bring as many as he thinks is necessary for it.”  
  
Graves nods because he’s in agreement with that. He’s also confident Grindelwald won’t find Credence, not unless a mistake is made, and he trusts the few who know where Credence is to not put themselves in a position to make mistakes.  
  
They’re sequestered for that very reason, so Grindelwald never gets his hands on one of his Captains.  
  
“It’ll be alright, Credence,” Graves says as he watches Credence look at his knees. “We’ve been planning for this for a few years now.”  
  
“So has he,” Credence says quietly, not looking at Graves.  
  
“We ruined most of his plans when we brought you in,” Graves reminds him and smiles, because Credence looks torn between annoyance and wry agreement. “A little faith, remember? Maybe if you start believing good things will happen to you, rather than bad, you’ll see some luck go your way.”  
  
Credence huffs a little. “I told you when I do that it all gets worse,” he says but he’s smiling. He looks at Graves and shrugs. “But maybe I’ll start hoping for the best.”  
  
“The most I can ask for, I suppose,” Graves says with a chuckle. “You are an extremely pessimistic person.”  
  
“As if you aren’t exactly the same.”  
  
“Maybe,” Graves says. “But I’ve got the confidence to know some things will go the way I’ve planned.”  
  
“Then I’ll let you have that confidence and wish for the best myself,” Credence says simply. “When will Mister Fontaine be back?”  
  
Graves raises an eyebrow. “Likely after dinner,” he says and sighs tiredly when Credence smiles. “I didn’t say I was going to be here that whole time. I’ll send Barrows in when I leave. Can’t stay away from the office for four hours.”  
  
“I know that,” Credence says. “But it means you can stay for at least an hour anyway.”  
  
“Who says?” Graves asks. “You? That’s not how this works. Now, if you asked nicely…”  
  
Credence looks amused. _“Please,_ Director Graves, will you stay here for one entire hour and kiss me senseless for at least half of it?”  
  
Graves laughs. “Half of it is pushing it,” he says and stands. He moves between Credence’s knees and kisses him, gently, before encouraging him off the table. When he is, Graves transfigures it into a large, comfortable sofa. “Easier than kissing you in the chair,” he says when Credence quirks an eyebrow at him.  
  
Credence sits down anyway before lying back and looking up at the ceiling with a smile. “This is almost better than the bed I have in the cell.”  
  
Graves takes off his jacket and hangs it over the back of his chair, his wand inside. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Credence - he does - but that doesn’t mean his paranoia wants his hands on his wand either way.  
  
“You going to make room?” he asks as he moves to the sofa.  
  
“You’re going to have to make your own.”  
  
Graves smirks and moves onto the sofa, over Credence, who is more than happy to snake his arms around his ribs and pull him closer. They kiss, slow and easy, for a while and it’s… good. More than good. Credence doesn’t ask for more, not right now, and doesn’t seem to mind when Graves moves down and rests his head against Credence’s shoulder.  
  
He’s exhausted and Credence’s fingers in his hair feel amazing and he could pretend this is normal. That he’d had a hard day at work and come home to Credence, who would do this for him.  
  
But it’s not normal and Graves might be exhausted, but there will be no falling asleep here. He’s got too much on his mind, is too paranoid about someone coming down to fetch him for an emergency, though he thinks Credence is right that it’ll be quiet for a while.  
  
“If I wrote to you,” Credence says quietly and nervously, “if I wrote to you when I got out, would you write me back?”  
  
Graves can feel Credence’s heart racing under his palm and rubs his chest. “I would,” he says because he knows the truth of it.  
  
“I wouldn’t expect anything from you, especially… especially if it’s not for a long time. Longer than six years,” Credence says in a rush. “But I’d still like to hear from you.”  
  
“You will,” Graves says. “I always tell Sera I’m going to die in a blaze of glory but I plan on sticking around long enough to instate my successor. I’ll be there, Credence.”  
  
“Okay,” Credence says with a soft sigh. “Thank you. Don’t die in a blaze of glory.”  
  
Graves chuckles. “I won’t, sweetheart,” he says. He looks up at Credence when he tugs at his hair, not ungently, and leans in, because Credence is seeking another kiss.  
  
It’s more heated than the last one and the occasional, small moan Credence gives when they kiss drives Graves a little mad, but he pulls away soon after and looks down at Credence. He smiles when Credence shifts against him and sees the arousal in his eyes is apparent elsewhere.  
  
“Not only do I doubt we have the time,” Graves says, “but if I could even get it up right now, it’d be a winter miracle.”  
  
Credence laughs and grins, sliding his hands down and under Graves’ shirt. “You do look like you’re about to fall asleep,” he says. “We could switch. Let me do the work.”  
  
“Get me on my back and I’m going to be out like a light.”  
  
“I have a feeling that’s not true. Especially not when I get you going and you’re inside of me.”  
  
Graves sighs and closes his eyes briefly, because that does get things stirring. It’s a horrible fucking idea and he’ll be pissed if they’re interrupted, but Graves has surrendered to Credence Barebone and the horrible idea that this is already.  
  
But the moment Grindelwald is stopped Credence will go to prison. How much time do they really have left for it?  
  
He looks at Credence and smiles. “Put your Dragot where your mouth is, Mister Barebone.”  
  
Credence grins.  
  
He does just that. It turns out Graves doesn’t have any issues at all when Credence is straddling his waist down to nothing but his skin.  
  
It also turns out they’re not interrupted at any point and it wasn’t such a horrible idea after all.  
  
——  
  
Graves works tirelessly over the next week to track down Grindelwald. It remains quiet, eerily so, on the streets of New York City, hardly any movement from criminals at all.  
  
The Auror department is a flurry of activity, of constant information flowing in and out, leads and more leads, most not leading to anything at all. It’s hard to track anyone down when no hexes or Unforgivable Curses are being cast, when any criminal movement is happening underground, and Credence has many ideas, but most don’t come to fruition.  
  
He’d told Grindelwald plenty about Manhattan before he’d been arrested, to prepare him for his arrival, and Grindelwald won’t be using the channels Credence told him about anymore. It doesn’t leave a lot of places for him to go, Credence knows the underbelly of this city better than most, and Graves suspects he’s outside of it for now.  
  
It doesn’t mean he’s not got his own around the city keeping an eye on it, keeping an eye on MACUSA, but Graves keeps his Aurors inside unless they’re following up on leads and even then he and his Captains don’t leave. He sleeps in his office most nights, on a transfigured sofa, because he’s not going to ask them to sleep in the office and go home to his feather pillow. It’s better to be here when news comes in anyway.  
  
He sees Credence every day, a new priority for him, not just because they are working together, but because it keeps Credence happy. It keeps him from worrying about Graves so damn much and makes his faith in him a little stronger.  
  
No one suspects anything, not even Fontaine, who has a certain soft spot for Credence as well. Hard not to, Graves knows, for any of them. His eagerness to help, his solid information, his dry humor, they’re all things they appreciate. It keeps them blinded to what happens behind closed doors and Graves is glad for it.  
  
They don’t have sex every day, not when some of their time spent together is entirely filled with work, but they stay close in other ways. It’s not good, Graves knows, it’s still a colossally stupid thing to do, but he passed the point of caring a while ago.  
  
It’ll come around to bite him in the ass, he’s sure, the second he has to watch Credence go to prison. He doubts either of them will cope well with it but Graves isn’t about to drop seeing him. He’ll visit Credence, at least monthly, though he can’t write to him. But he’ll bring him books and a good meal when he can so Credence knows he isn’t alone. That Graves cares about him and that he’ll be there when he gets out.  
  
He knows Credence fears that he’ll forget him, that he’ll move on with someone else, but Graves is thoroughly and completely fucked when it comes to Credence Barebone. He’ll wait for him. He doesn’t tell Credence any of this, doesn’t want him to focus on anything but the present, but he will promise him it when it’s time.  
  
Graves visits Credence with lunch after a nonstop morning and sends Barrows upstairs.  
  
They eat together and don’t talk about anything serious for a while. Graves watches Credence smile and laugh and emphasize with his hands as he speaks, more than Credence probably knows he does, but it’s something that makes Graves’ heart ache and not in a bad way. Credence has no damn idea how charming he is, even when he’s being a mischievous shit, and Graves is lost.  
  
Lost and completely fucked.  
  
When they do get to work, Credence sits in his lap, not for the first time, and Graves writes notes while Credence talks and the chalkboard across from them steadily fills over an hour or so.  
  
“I said Laurentis, not Laurentius,” Credence says, pointing at Graves’ notepad.  
  
“I know what you said,” Graves says. “It’s Laurentius.”  
  
“It is not. Angelo Laurentis.”  
  
“Credence, I have a copy of his birth certificate in his file.”  
  
“But he always said Laurentis!”  
  
“So he’s fucking neurotic, but I promise you it’s Laurentius.”  
  
Credence laughs and shakes his head, his arm slung around Graves’ shoulders. “It’s probably because everyone would drag it out if they called him Laurentius,” he says. “I bet people called you Percival in Ilvermorny for the same reason.”  
  
“No one called me Percival in Ilvermorny except the Headmistress,” Graves says idly as he writes more. “They called me Graves or Percy because they knew I’d jinx them if they called me anything else.”  
  
“Percival is a very serious name.”  
  
“I think my father named me Percival hoping I’d be a very serious individual. Turns out I was born an infant and he hated me until he died.”  
  
Credence shakes his head with an amused smile. “From the few things you’ve said about your father,” he says, “I think he and my mother would get along.”  
  
“Most likely,” Graves mutters darkly, thinking of the scars he’s now seen littering Credence’s back. His own body would be in worse shape if he hadn’t had access to magical healing. “Until she started spouting off her witches are the devil’s spawn nonsense.”  
  
Credence nods. “Wouldn’t have blamed him if he cursed her for it,” he says. “What was your mother like?”  
  
Graves sets his pen down and leans back, looking up at Credence. “My mother… was a fickle woman. Interests constantly changing to fit in with high Pureblood society. Not a woman meant for children, we were given to nursemaids the moment we were born. She lacked affection for us the way my father lacked affection for her. She was prone to fits of melancholy and anger. After my sister’s funeral, during the wake, she vanished. Her and her suitcase and half her clothes.”  
  
Credence’s eyebrows slowly raise. “She just left?” he asks. “Did you ever find out where she went?”  
  
“When she died, yes,” Graves says with a smirk. “Didn’t care to go looking for her. But her will was written and my father couldn’t get it changed. She died and what family fortune she’d managed to keep for herself from her own inheritance came to me, along with a few of my sister’s belongings she’d taken.”  
  
“Sounds like she might have regretted treating you the way she did,” Credence says. “If she held onto Eliza’s belongings.”  
  
“Oh, I’m sure it was to dramatically wail to her high society friends about how this ribbon or this doll belonged to her dear, dead daughter,” Graves says dryly. “The inheritance I only received because she had no else to give it to and knew it would anger my father.”  
  
“Merlin,” Credence mutters. “Your family sounds worse than my mother.”  
  
“Fairly run of the mill when it comes to Pureblood families who put a lot of stake into being Pureblood,” Graves says with amusement. “Every once in a while one of us manages to break the mold.”  
  
“Still,” Credence sighs. “These are the only times I wish I believed in hell still. So I could hope they were all burning together in it.”  
  
Graves smiles and shrugs. “Who knows what’s on the other side,” he says and rubs Credence’s thigh. “Not even ghosts can say.”  
  
Credence huffs. “Well, for my own sake, I hope it’s nothing.”  
  
“You wouldn’t call this repenting for your sins? The lives you’ve saved?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Credence says. “I may not have killed anyone but information I learned and gave to people led to deaths, even if I never saw it. Does saving lives erase that?”  
  
“Erase it? No. But dedicating your life to saving people now, going to prison for crimes you’ve committed, and getting out to be better sure as shit earns you forgiveness.”  
  
“In your eyes, maybe.”  
  
Graves shakes his head. “In a lot of peoples’ eyes,” he says. “You don’t have to worry about anyone but the people you let in, Credence.”  
  
“Besides you, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to let anyone else in.”  
  
“You’ll figure it out,” Graves says. “You’ll make friends. Get a job. Find a place to call your own. Life is going to be better for you, Credence.”  
  
Credence smiles. “I hope so,” he says and leans down to kiss Graves. “Thank you for giving me what you have before I go.”  
  
Graves smiles wryly. “I don’t know if it’s going to make it worse for you or not.”  
  
“Definitely not,” Credence says. “I got to experience you, a good man, someone who treats me well, who treats me _right._ How can that be anything but a gift?”  
  
Graves gazes at Credence as he rubs his thigh and smiles. “Well,” he says, “I suppose I can’t ask for more than that. That sounds like a little optimism to me, Mister Barebone.”  
  
Credence grins. “Another thing you give me more and more of every day,” he says. He leans down and kisses Graves again, short and sweet. “You know what else would make me optimistic?”  
  
“Working diligently for the next hour?”  
  
“Not exactly.”  
  
“Something that keeps all of our clothes on?”  
  
“...hmm. No, not that either.”  
  
Graves sighs. “Dare I ask?”  
  
Credence smiles. “Seeing that look you get when I take off my clothes. The same look you get when I touch you or when you first get in me.”  
  
“The _wow, he’s a hot piece of ass_ look?”  
  
“If that’s what you want to call it,” Credence says with a twinkling glint in his eyes. “You get that look when I kiss you too. More then, probably. But right now I want to see it in a different way.”  
  
Graves knows perfectly well what Credence is talking about, because he sees the same look on his face, in his eyes, in the same moments. But it’s too soon to name, for both of them, though it makes Graves’ heart race faster.  
  
He smiles. “And what way is that?”  
  
“Let me show you,” Credence says softly. He moves off of Graves’ lap and pushes the chair back before sinking onto his knees.  
  
Graves watches him, moving his hand to Credence’s hair, brushing his fingers through it.  
  
Credence smiles and Graves sees it, plainly and openly.  
  
He smiles and maybe he can’t say it, not yet, but he knows Credence sees it too.  
  
——  
  
Another week goes by, still calm and quiet, Grindelwald and his followers biding their time.  
  
Graves and his teams discuss how he might do it, how he might attack, how it might all begin, so they can anticipate it. He doesn’t like the time that passes, doesn’t like not knowing where Grindelwald’s mind is, but they continue to work hard and with what little sleep they can manage to catch.  
  
Seraphina is safe, as are the families of all of his Aurors, but Graves feels impending doom and it makes him angry that he doesn’t know where it will hit.  
  
Credence suggests many things, many places that Grindelwald is drawn to, but they can’t root him out. They find some of his followers occasionally and Graves has the thought that it’s too easy again. That his followers feel placed, placed where Credence might tell them to go, and he stops sending Aurors before it can lead to tragedy.  
  
Another distraction, another game and Graves doesn’t understand it.  
  
He’ll be completely grey by the end of this, he’s sure, and tells Credence so. Credence only smiles and tells him he thinks he’d like the look.  
  
Credence is Graves’ one bright spot at the moment. He’s keeping Graves sane, keeping his head screwed on straight, with every touch and kiss, with every word of encouragement and aid, and Graves wants this to be over with, for both their sakes’.  
  
He wants to work down Credence’s sentence, wants him out as soon as possible, but he doesn’t think Sera will hear anything less than he’s already proposed if Grindelwald is brought down by his department and not Credence’s information.  
  
Graves is in too deep and he knows it but Credence only needs to smile at him, only needs to run his fingers through his hair, and he doesn’t care.  
  
It is taking a toll on Credence and Graves tries to help, but he can’t soothe the ever present worry Credence has that Grindelwald will find him and kill him. Graves still hasn’t told Credence he won’t kill him, thinks it would frighten him more, and only holds him when he worries and tells him it’ll be over soon.  
  
Graves doesn’t know that. But he thinks it’s true either way, because Grindelwald hasn’t disappeared entirely, he is still making moves, no matter how small. He’s not gone off into the countryside to recruit people in silence, where he isn’t heard from for months, and it worries Graves.  
  
He doesn’t let Credence see it. He doesn’t want to watch his smile fade and not come back until it’s finished.  
  
The fact that Credence smiles at all, that he laughs and teases and grows every day is a miracle in itself. He’s the man he could’ve been from the beginning and there will always be pain, but healing has started and Graves can’t ask for more than that.  
  
He’s sitting with Credence around ten in the evening, Jauncey upstairs at the beginning of her shift, because Graves hasn’t been able to leave the office all day and he refuses to miss his time with Credence. Even if they only spend an hour together, it’s what they both need.  
  
They’re on the sofa together. Credence is leaning back against Graves’ chest, a notepad and pen in his hand, and he’s sketching. Graves has only recently learned that Credence likes to sketch because Credence was embarrassed to tell him, of course, but it’s immensely soothing to watch him do it.  
  
Graves watches him sketch the Brooklyn Bridge from memory, his arm around Credence’s chest, and rubs his thumb along his collarbone.  
  
“Do you think they’ll let me have a pencil?”  
  
“Sure,” Graves says. “When they trust you won’t try to stab them with it.”  
  
Credence sighs. “Put in a good word for me then,” he says. “How far down along the bridge do the cables go? I can’t remember.”  
  
Graves points at the point on the bridge Credence has sketched with remarkable detail so far. He doesn’t know when he last saw it, but he’s got a good memory. Mostly, anyway.  
  
“It looks good,” Graves says as he watches Credence lightly sketch the cables before going over them again, darker.  
  
“Thanks,” Credence says, a smile in his voice. “Have you heard the no-majs are going to build a massive bridge out in San Francisco? I think they’re still trying to get approval for the design but it’s supposed to take years to build.”  
  
“I hadn’t heard that,” Graves says with a smile. Of course Credence would pay attention to that sort of thing. “How many years?”  
  
“Four or five, I think I heard. It’s apparently going to be a pretty amazing sight,” Credence says. “I’d like to see it.”  
  
“Sounds like you might need to head out to San Francisco when you’re out.”  
  
“It probably won’t be done even by then,” Credence says. “Or maybe it’ll be just finished. I’ve never been to California.”  
  
“Los Angeles is a terrible place,” Graves says in the middle of a yawn.  
  
Credence laughs. “You think anything outside of Manhattan is a terrible place,” he says. “You’ve got the money to travel to nice places, you should do it sometime.”  
  
Graves hums and rubs Credence’s chest. “Maybe I should,” he says. “Maybe I’ll take you to San Francisco.”  
  
Credence pauses briefly in sketching before he continues. “I’d like that,” he says softly. “Seeing things like that with you.”  
  
“Don’t ever ask me to take you to Paris or London. They’re both horrible too, not nearly as romantic as everyone likes to say.”  
  
“You get to see places all over the world and you just complain about it. Probably the only person alive that does.”  
  
“I get to see places all over the world because I’m hunting down people who are making messes of it,” Graves says dryly. “You try to enjoy Paris when you’re dodging spells in tight alleyways.”  
  
Credence laughs. “Do you at least eat nice pastries while you’re there?”  
  
“And drink good coffee,” Graves says. “The coffee is the best part about it.”  
  
“Good coffee is worth the trip,” Credence says. “I want to sit in a Paris cafe and drink coffee and eat croissants. With you, preferably. If you’ll wait for me.”  
  
“Dream big, sweetheart, and they might just come true.”  
  
Credence looks back at Graves with a grin. “It’s kind of nice to dream big, you know.”  
  
“I do know,” Graves says with a smirk. “Dreamed big my entire life.”  
  
“Until you got to the top of the world and decided you hated the rest of it.”  
  
Graves laughs. “Not everything,” he says and pinches Credence’s chin.  
  
Credence smiles and sets his notepad and pen aside. He moves around and faces Graves and kisses him. His hand is cool on Graves’ cheek, always has been, but the rest of him is warm and Graves pulls him close.  
  
“You know,” Credence whispers when he pulls back, “I’ve always wanted—”  
  
He abruptly stops talking when silver light fills the room and they look at a Patronus. An eagle, flying through the door and landing on the table.  
  
Fontaine’s.  
  
Graves thinks his heart stops beating.  
  
“Barrows is dead,” Fontaine’s voice says, tight and breathless, “placed on our doorstep minutes ago. He’s coming. Get out.”  
  
Graves is on his feet before the Patronus has faded away and he grabs his jacket and yanks it on. “Move, Credence,” he says firmly, because Credence is frozen, staring at the table, then at Graves. “Credence!”  
  
Credence flinches and stands and Graves takes his hand. He leads him out of the room and up the stairs, waving his wand at the door until it flies open and he pulls Credence toward the living room. Jauncey is ready and waiting, her wand out at her side, and she nods briskly.  
  
“Where to, Percy?”  
  
This isn’t how it was supposed to go. So many distractions, all for nothing, all to lead to an attempted ambush. They were merely waiting for someone to step outside.  
  
This isn’t how it was supposed to go, not with all the information they had, not with Credence’s help, and Graves missed it. He missed it entirely, too focused on trying to make sense of things, when it wasn’t supposed to make sense.  
  
It's all been for nothing.  
  
“82B,” Graves says and opens the door.  
  
The village is dark, the open field in front of it a sea of black, but they only need to step onto the doorstep and Disapparate. Graves steps out, gesturing for Credence to stay back, and he’s glad for it, because the bright red jet of magic comes from fifty yards out, plenty of time for him to put up a shield.  
  
“Lift the enchantments!” Jauncey yells, but it’s too late and he’d need minutes, not seconds.  
  
Reductos hit the house, from the sides and back and it’s a deafening explosion of brick and splintered wood, and Jauncey and Graves block as much of it as they can. Graves keeps Credence close, hears him shouting, and the moment there’s room enough to see them in the debris, curses are aimed at them.  
  
There are a dozen of them, easily, and they have no choice but to fight. There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, no chance for Apparition while killing curses are aimed their way.  
  
Graves protects himself and Credence and he has the thought to take off Credence’s bonds so he might join the fight, but he thinks Credence wouldn’t be able to control his magic. That he’d only hurt himself.  
  
They’re forced out of the rubble of the home and toward the field and Graves expects his Aurors to be here, but they’re not.  
  
They’re not coming, he realizes, because they are being hit too. It had been in Fontaine’s voice.  
  
When they get closer to the field, Graves can only see where the spells are coming from and not who’s casting them, and he thinks it’s the only way to get Credence out of here.  
  
“Go,” he says. “Run while they can’t see and get out of here, Credence.” He flicks his wand to deflect a Stupefy and glances at Credence. “Go!”  
  
“Percy, I’m not fucking leaving!” Credence says. “Take them off, take them off, I can help, please—”  
  
His words are cut off with a cry when a spell hits Graves’ shield with enough force to break it and they’re both sent to the ground. It knocks the air out of Graves’ chest, but he’s unhurt.  
  
“Stay down!” he barks when Credence begins to move and he’s on his feet. He moves away from Credence then, to get him out of the light of spells, and it works, for now, because they follow him instead.  
  
But this isn’t something he can win. He knows it, they know it, but he’s not going down without a fight. Without trying to get Credence out of here.  
  
Grindelwald’s here, Graves knows, because that spell wasn’t from any of his followers. No more killing curses have been aimed his way, which doesn’t bode well for him because the order came from Grindelwald, and he has no idea where Jauncey is. No idea if she’s one of the casters, because the moon is covered by thick clouds, and Graves knows he cannot win.  
  
It’s anger and despair that he feels, despair for Credence, because he was right. He was right that Grindelwald was coming and Graves doesn’t know how. Doesn’t know how they got their hands on Barrows, but his Captain is dead, the information stolen from him.  
  
The safehouses filled with families, Seraphina’s location, and Graves can only hope that they make it out of this alive. The way he won’t.  
  
Graves will never tire in the field, but there are so many of them, and he doesn’t have eyes on Credence, but he looks for a sign of him, looks for a sign that he’s gotten away before Graves can’t fight for him anymore.  
  
The curse hits him from behind and he tastes blood before he hits the ground, knocked heavily onto his shoulder. There’s a dense weight in his back, in his abdomen, and he feels the hot rush of blood, sudden and strong, soaking into his clothes. The pain sets in and Graves still has his wand but his hands are shaking too badly to cast a spell to stop the blood flow.  
  
“Percy,” he hears Credence’s voice, frantic and afraid, and his hands are on Graves, pushing him onto his back. “Take them off, I’ll heal you, take them off,” he says, high and tearful, and he didn’t go.  
  
Didn’t leave. Didn’t listen.  
  
“Step away, my boy,” a voice says, the accent not as thick as Graves was expecting, and he knows this is over. “We’ve work to do before he bleeds out.”  
  
“Percy,” Credence hisses and Graves can only look up at him.  
  
_I’m sorry,_ he thinks, because Grindelwald has come to stand over him and he won’t say it. It’s useless, he’ll find out what’s gone on between them, but maybe it’ll buy Credence another moment to try and escape.  
  
Grindelwald is becoming a blur and Graves sees a hand reach for him and doesn’t know whose it is, because his world turns black.  
  
When Graves’ eyes open again, just cracked, he thinks he must be dead. There’s no more pain and it’s warm here, a faint orange glow all he can see through blurred vision.  
  
But he smells old furniture, dust, and he hears voices and knows he’s not dead. It’s the glow of a fire, the warmth of one, and Graves blinks a few times, until the blurriness fades and he can see dusty hardwood floors beneath his cheek, a rug nearby, the back of a sofa and table. Dark wallpaper that’s cracked and peeling and he doesn’t know where he is.  
  
His hands are shackled behind his back and he doesn’t move because the voices are coming from behind him. He looks down toward his feet and sees Jauncey.  
  
She’s on her side, her back to him, her dirty blonde hair matted with some blood, and he looks at her shoulder, her ribs, and sees no rise and fall in them.  
  
Graves closes his eyes and he doesn’t know how this has happened, but he’s failed two of his Captains. Two of his friends that he’s known for fifteen fucking years and Graves’ eyes sting but he blinks that away and concentrates on the voices behind him.  
  
“—still of use,” he hears Credence say and there’s immense relief, to hear his voice, but it’s short lived. “You know that, you know he’s worth so much more alive than dead.”  
  
“I’ve taken everything from him already, my boy,” Grindelwald replies calmly. There’s a clink of glass touching glass and the sound of liquid being poured from a liquor bottle. “We can’t impersonate him as we meant to anymore. I’m afraid that he will only ever be a weakness kept alive.”  
  
“Please,” Credence says, with desperation, “please. They’ll do anything for him, give you whatever you want, whatever you need—”  
  
“Will _you_ do anything for him, Credence?”  
  
“Yes,” Credence answers without hesitation, tears in his voice. “Yes, I will. Please let him live.”  
  
“Falling in love with the enemy,” Grindelwald says with a sigh. “Always a dangerous thing. I’m disappointed in you, Credence. That you did not make it harder for them, that you gave away so much, that you would believe anything he had to say to you.”  
  
Grindelwald’s gone through Credence’s mind as much as he’s gone through Graves’ and Graves feels hollow, like his heart has gone missing.  
  
He’s failed Credence most of all.  
  
The hurt Credence will feel, the pain that will stick, Graves is responsible for. He knows the truth of what’s going to happen and he can’t fight it. It’s a calm acceptance, even while a lump forms in his throat and tears sting at his eyes. Not for himself, but for the man he loves.  
  
“Please,” Credence says, soft and pleading. “I’ll do whatever you ask of me. For as long as you need. Let him go, please, Mister Grindelwald, _please.”_ _  
_  
Graves carefully rolls onto his back and looks at Grindelwald and Credence. Grindelwald is standing in front of a liquor cabinet near the fireplace and Credence is at his side, begging for him to spare Graves’ life and he can’t bear it anymore.  
  
“Credence,” he says quietly.  
  
Credence looks at him, quickly, and he is as pale as a ghost, frightened, and he’s so young, Graves thinks. Too young for this and he never should have gotten close, never should have put that look in Credence’s eyes.  
  
Graves can see Grindelwald’s face through the mirrored cabinet doors, the small smile he wears, and he gestures over his shoulder when Credence looks at him.  
  
“Go be with him, my boy, if you love him so.”  
  
And Credence does, moving to Graves and kneeling, the bonds still on his wrists. Graves couldn’t take them off even if he wanted to and he looks up at Credence, at the tears in his eyes that fall, when he touches Graves’ face, his cheek and his forehead.  
  
“Percy,” he whispers. “Please. Please tell him you have more to give. You know you do.”  
  
“Credence,” Graves says quietly. “Listen to me. Shh, shh, love, it’s alright,” he adds, when Credence chokes on a cry. “I’m sorry I did this to you.”  
  
“Don’t say that,” Credence says. “Please, Percy.”  
  
“You find a way to protect yourself,” Graves says and shakes his head when Credence cries harder. “Shh. Love, look at me. You’ll be alright. You’ve always been a survivor.”  
  
“No,” Credence croaks and looks at Grindelwald. _“Please,_ no.”  
  
“The dangers of falling in love,” Grindelwald says and sips from his glass. He sets it aside and approaches. “A pain not worth bearing. I’ve told you this. The weakness love causes. You’ve betrayed more than me and now you experience it the way I warned you not to.”  
  
“Don’t kill him,” Credence says weakly, clutching at Graves. “For me, please, don’t.”  
  
Grindelwald peers down at Credence and smiles. “Punishment for the betrayal,” he says softly.  
  
“Kill me then,” Credence says. “Kill me and let him go.”  
  
“Credence,” Graves says and waits for Credence to look at him. “He made up his mind the moment he knew where to find you. It’s alright. You’ll be alright.”  
  
Credence sobs more and shakes his head. “I won’t, not without you,” he says. “Please, Percy.”  
  
“Step away now, Credence,” Grindelwald says. “We mustn’t stay here for long.”  
  
“No!” Credence says and touches Graves’ cheek. “Percy, please, fight it.” He shouts when Grindelwald grabs the back of his collar and drags him away and he tries to come back, but one scathing look stops him.  
  
Graves can’t protect him anymore and it’s what puts tears in his eyes. Graves has ruined him because he chose to be selfish and Credence will suffer in agony for this. He can’t do anything about it, so he smiles instead.  
  
“You remember everything I told you, Credence,” he says. “You keep remembering what you saw when you looked at me. Hold onto it, love, best you can.”  
  
Credence is beautiful even in his despair and Graves would give anything to touch him once more, to stop him from crying the way he is, to stop his heart from breaking.  
  
Graves looks at Grindelwald and has nothing to say to him. He merely nods, ready, and looks at Credence.  
  
The last thing he sees is the way emerald green light falls over Credence’s skin.  
  
They always say there is beauty even in death.  
  
——  
  
Credence feels the air leave his chest, feels the way his heart cracks in two, and stares. Stares and stares and stares, because this can’t be real.  
  
It hurts too much to be a nightmare but he prays to God that it is, as he falls to his knees, holding his hands over his mouth, and stares at Percy.  
  
Percy who lived only a moment ago, love in his eyes, now lifeless, never to look at Credence again. A tear falls from his eye, but he doesn’t move to wipe it away, and Credence screams then because he knows this can’t be undone.  
  
That Percy won’t stir and fix this and he’s taken Credence’s heart with him.  
  
Grindewald’s hand touches the back of his head, gentle, a mockery of Percy’s touch. “I know it hurts, my boy,” he says. “I did warn you. But loyalty shall be rewarded in time. Will you betray me again?”  
  
Credence stares at Percy and breathes, each one in and out painful in heaving gasps, his hands shaking when he lowers them. “No,” he says, broken and quiet, but the truth.  
  
“Good,” Grindelwald whispers. “You’re very special to me, Credence. Come now, there’s still much to do. Say goodbye, if you must. And for you, my boy, I’ll ensure they’re found.”  
  
He walks away then, back to the other side of the room.  
  
Credence crawls forward until he’s at Percy’s side and he closes Percy’s eyes, because he can’t stand to see them open and unseeing. He leans down and presses his forehead to Percy’s, still so warm, and cries as he holds onto his shirt.  
  
“You’ll still wait for me, won’t you?” he whispers and squeezes his eyes shut. “I love you too. I’m so sorry, Percy. Wait for me, please.”  
  
Credence knows that the man he loves is dead because of him. He pushed Percy into this, was selfish when he knew Grindelwald would find him, but Percy was warm and kind and every time he laughed, Credence’s heart belonged more to him.  
  
He would be alive and well if Credence hadn’t asked him for more and there’s nothing he can do now, no way to take it back and save Percy from this fate that he foolishly stopped fearing.  
  
But Credence can still do something for Percy. For himself and the world and it’d make Percy proud.  
  
Credence kisses him, gently, and touches his cheek one last time before he stands on wooden legs. He looks at Grindelwald across the room, sipping bourbon, watching Credence with cold detachment.  
  
_No,_ Credence thinks, _I won’t betray you._  
  
_But I will kill you._  
  
He leaves Percy and walks out of the room, but he knows that Percy hasn’t left him. His heart is gone, taken to the grave with Percy’s body, but he feels Percy’s soul in his and Credence may be broken, but there’s strength in him still.  
  
Percy’s strength and his own, for what he will do someday, and as he walks down a dark hall, he thinks it’s Percy that will be guiding his footsteps for the rest of the way.


End file.
